Africanized honey bee colonization in the human domain: Issues of environmental anthropology in southern Nevada

Environmental anthropology seeks to identify issues and propose resolutions when humans are directly affected by environmental consequences or indirectly by policies that may marginalize the concerns of certain populations. Africanized Honey Bees created both environmental and policy consequences in southern Nevada. Identification of the issues was accomplished with literature review, participant observation, informal interview, and conferencing with academic and agency officials related to the human/bee problem. The controversy in risk assessment has implications for urban residents in southern Nevada. Both agricultural and urban environments may be economically and politically impacted by the colonization of feral Africanized Honey Bees. Urban populations affected by bee colonization should maintain a proactive, perceived risk posture to protect residents and tourism in southern Nevada

Conspicuous Female Ornamentation and Tests of Male Mate Preference in Threespine Sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

Sexual selection drives the evolution of exaggerated male ornaments in many animal species. Female ornamentation is now acknowledged also to be common but is generally less well understood. One example is the recently documented red female throat coloration in some threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populations. Although female sticklebacks often exhibit a preference for red male throat coloration, the possibility of sexual selection on female coloration has been little studied. Using sequential and simultaneous mate choice trials, we examined male mate preferences for female throat color, as well as pelvic spine color and standard length, using wild-captured threespine sticklebacks from the Little Campbell River, British Columbia. In a multivariate analysis, we found no evidence for a population-level mate preference in males, suggesting the absence of directional sexual selection on these traits arising from male mate choice. Significant variation was detected among males in their preference functions, but this appeared to arise from differences in their mean responsiveness across mating trials and not from variation in the strength (i.e., slope) of their preference, suggesting the absence of individual-level preferences as well. When presented with conspecific intruder males, male response decreased as intruder red throat coloration increased, suggesting that males can discriminate color and other aspects of phenotype in our experiment and that males may use these traits in intrasexual interactions. The results presented here are the first to explicitly address male preference for female throat color in threespine sticklebacks.Open Access Publishing Fun