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.
Highlights
The fermentation ability of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has made it an important component of human culture for thousands of years
We find a focus on oak trees, with oak bark as the main source of wild Saccharomyces strains (Sniegowski et al, 2002; Johnson et al, 2004; Koufopanou et al, 2006; Sampaio and Goncalves, 2008; Zhang et al, 2010; Wang et al, 2012; Charron et al, 2014; Sylvester et al, 2015)
We found that the growth of Saccharomyces paradoxus on oak bark nutrients was suppressed by the much more abundant members of the oak bark microbial community
Summary
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 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, there was significant tree-to-tree variation. Our results suggest that leaf litter rather than tree surfaces provide the better habitat for wild Saccharomyces, with oak being the preferred tree genus. 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
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