Brock Harpur > Consider a new allele acted on by strong positive selection. Selection increases the frequency of this allele within a population over time, fixing it in the population (assuming that the population size is sufficiently large and that the stochastic influence of genetic drift on allele frequencies is sufficiently small). 

Me > The flip side is: if the population is too small, and there is a strong force of dilution, the beneficial allele can't get a foothold to become predominant. This is why local adaptation in honey bees is probably a mirage.

Randy > The above statement can be easily disproven.  Most any bee breeder--who applies selective pressure to a small population--can tell you how easy it is to shift the genetics of that population.

Me: Do you dispute the first statement, that a population size must be sufficiently large and that the stochastic influence of genetic drift on allele frequencies must be sufficiently small? Because my statement is implied by that one. Do you have any sort of "proof" other than "ask any bee breeder"? I know what sorts of claims are made by bee breeders. 

I am reminding of the practice of grafting in fruit trees. Many varieties are propagated by cuttings. You could have millions of acres of a particular variety. But the seeds of the apples do not produce that variety. The genes aren't changed at all. Whatever might be passed on by an individual queen bee is pretty quickly lost the first time she's superseded.

PLB

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