Cystobasidium alpinum sp. nov. and Rhodosporidiobolus oreadorum sp. nov. from European Cold Environments and Arctic Region

• Published in: Life
• Main Authors: Benedetta Turchetti, Laura Selbmann, Nina Gunde-Cimerman, Pietro Buzzini, José Sampaio, Polona Zalar
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2018
• Subjects: Cystobasidium alpinum sp. nov.; Rhodosporidiobolus oreadorum sp. nov.; psychrophilic yeasts; Arctic; Alps; cold-adapted biodiversity; Norway; Svalbard
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/life8020009

Over 80% of the Earth’s environments are permanently or periodically exposed to temperatures below 5 °C. Cold habitats harbour a wide diversity of psychrophilic and psychrotolerant yeasts. During ecological studies of yeast communities carried out in cold ecosystem in the Italian Alps, Svalbard (Norway, Arctic region), and Portugal, 23 yeast strains that could not be assigned to any known fungal taxa were isolated. In particular, two of them were first identified as Rhodotorula sp., showing the highest degree of D1/D2 sequence identity with Cystobasidum laryngis accounted to only 97% with the type strain (C. laryngis CBS 2221). The other 21 strains, exhibiting identical D1/D2 sequences, had low identity (97%) with Rhodosporidiobolus lusitaniae and Rhodosporidiobolus colostri. Similarly, ITS sequences of the type strains of the most closely related species (93–94%). In a 2-genes multilocus D1/D2 and ITS ML phylogenetic tree, the studied strains pooled in two well separated and supported groups. In order to classify the new 23 isolates based on phylogenetic evidences, we propose the description of two novel species Cystobasidium alpinum sp. nov. and Rhodosporidiobolus oreadorum sp. nov.