Harvesting yeast from strong beer

[hlmbrwng]

Would there be any benefit from harvesting yeast from a bottle of high ABV beer to inoculate high gravity wort? Since the remaining viable yeast, if any, has been "selected" to handle high gravity and high ABV, would building a starter from a beer like Black Tuesday or World Wide Stout make sense?

 

[cswis86]

At first thought it makes sense but that's not necessarily how artificial selection works. The yeast left in the bottle aren't any more tolerant of alcohol than they were to start with. They were just the last yeast to settle out of suspension. Increasing alcohol tolerance has to occur from beneficial mutations that build up over many generations. There are plenty of yeast with high alcohol tolerance that are already available so harvesting yeast from a bottle seems like extra work. Also, the viability of yeast left at the bottom of a high alcohol beer will be very poor.