Kowallik, V;
Greig, D;
(2016)
A systematic forest survey showing an association of Saccharomyces paradoxus with oak leaf litter.
Environmental Microbiology Reports
, 8
(5)
pp. 833-841.
10.1111/1758-2229.12446.
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Abstract
Although we understand the genetics of the laboratory model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae very well, we know little about the natural ecology and environment that shaped its genome. Most isolates of Saccharomyces paradoxus, the wild relative of S. cerevisiae, come from oak trees, but it is not known whether this is because oak is their primary habitat. We surveyed leaf litter in a forest in Northern Germany and found a strong correlation between isolation success of wild Saccharomyces and the proximity of the nearest oak. We compared the four most common tree genera and found Saccharomyces most frequently in oak litter. Interestingly, we show that Saccharomyces is much more abundant in oak leaf litter than on oak bark, suggesting that it grows in litter or soil rather than on the surfaces of oaks themselves. The distribution and abundance of Saccharomyces over the course of a year shows that oak leaf litter provides a stable habitat for the yeast, although there was significant tree-to-tree variation. Taken together, our results suggest that leaf litter rather than tree surfaces provide the better habitat for wild Saccharomyces, with oak being the preferred tree genus. 99.5% of all strains (633/636) isolated were S. paradoxus.
Type: | Article |
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Title: | A systematic forest survey showing an association of Saccharomyces paradoxus with oak leaf litter. |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
DOI: | 10.1111/1758-2229.12446 |
Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-2229.12446 |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | © 2016 The Authors. Environmental Microbiology Reports published by Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1505845 |
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