Recent Selection For Gentleness In Puerto Rican "Killer Bees"

[Peterski]

About recent soft selection for less aggressive behavior in American descendants of African "killer bees":

https://gnxp.nofe.me/2017/11/24/soft-selection-for-gentleness-in-puerto-rican-african-honeybees/

"Killer bees" were introduced to the New World from Africa in 1957, some swarms accidentally escaped:

https://allyouneedisbiology.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/killer-bee_spreading-min.png?w=513&h=536

[Peterski]

Despite being genetically close to African Honey Bees (AHB), gentle African Honey Bees (gAHB) are much less aggressive.

PCA graph of bee populations:

http://gnxp.nofe.me/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/41467_2017_1800_Fig3_HTML.jpg

Someone should upload these bees to GEDmatch. :)

[Peterski]

About the original killer bees (before selection for gentleness):

https://allyouneedisbiology.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/killer-bee/

https://allyouneedisbiology.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/p038mjcr.jpg?w=1038&h=576&crop=1

https://allyouneedisbiology.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/native-range-min.png?w=359&h=379

[Peterski]

Bees evolved less aggressive because Puerto Rico is densely populated, the most aggressive swarms were targeted & destroyed by humans:

"(...) The key observation was that over 12 generations the African honeybees of Puerto Rico became progressively less aggressive, despite maintaining overall morphological similarities to the mainland Mexican African bees from which they likely derive. Though buried in the discussion, there is a rationale for why this morphological change may have occurred: the Puerto Rican bees are subject to a lot of negative selection against aggression because of the density of the island, as well as the reality that aside from humans there aren’t other many species where their aggressive tendencies are beneficial. Basically, if you are an aggressive colony, it’s harder to make a go in densely settled areas. (...)"

[Armenian Bishop]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luszv798bYc


"The Africanized Bee was nicknamed a Killer Bee because of their tendency to defend the hive to the endth degree. They will attack with such ferocity, and not just wound, or drive away intruders, they will kill them, and then keep stinging the corpse, whether it's a dog, a horse, or a person."


Today, Killer Bees are prominent in 10 States in the U.S. and are moving Northward.

[Morena]

That is very interesting. Here in mainland US, people tend to kill them whenever they catch them colonizing their properties. I hope this trend continues here.