Abstract
ABSTRACT Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the most extensively studied yeast and, over the last century, provided insights on the physiology, genetics, cellular biology and molecular mechanisms of eukaryotes. More recently, the increase in the discovery of wild strains, species and hybrids of the genus Saccharomyces has shifted the attention towards studies on genome evolution, ecology and biogeography, with the yeast becoming a model system for population genomic studies. The genus currently comprises eight species, some of clear industrial importance, while others are confined to natural environments, such as wild forests devoid from human domestication activities. To date, numerous studies showed that some Saccharomyces species form genetically diverged populations that are structured by geography, ecology or domestication activity and that the yeast species can also hybridize readily both in natural and domesticated environments. Much emphasis is now placed on the evolutionary process that drives phenotypic diversity between species, hybrids and populations to allow adaptation to different niches. Here, we provide an update of the biodiversity, ecology and population structure of the Saccharomyces species, and recapitulate the current knowledge on the natural history of Saccharomyces genus.
Highlights
The genus Saccharomyces includes S. cerevisiae a well-known organism in industrial baking and fermentation processes as well as in bioenergy and biomedical fields (Mager and Winderickx 2005; Fukuda, Kondo and Tamalampudi 2009; Sicard and Legras 2011)
Numerous studies showed that some Saccharomyces species form genetically diverged populations that are structured by geography, ecology or domestication activity and that the yeast species can hybridize readily both in natural and domesticated environments
EDNA of this species was detected in soil surrounding different tree species in Italy which encourages further sampling in the mountain regions across Europe (Alsammar et al 2019). These findings indicate that these substrates may not be the natural niche of the Saccharomyces species, a theory that contradicts the adaptation model, which postulates that for an organism to be adapted to a niche, it must be abundant in that niche (Goddard and Greig 2015)
Summary
The genus Saccharomyces includes S. cerevisiae a well-known organism in industrial baking and fermentation processes as well as in bioenergy and biomedical fields (Mager and Winderickx 2005; Fukuda, Kondo and Tamalampudi 2009; Sicard and Legras 2011). The whole-genome data of the S. uvarum strains that are associated with wild and domesticated environments in North and South America, Eurasia and Australasia have been phylogenetically analysed and grouped into three clades: South American A/Holarctic, South America B and Australasia (Table 1) (Almeida et al 2014).
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