Biodiversity of Yeasts Isolated From Con Dao Island – Ba Ria Vung Tau

Abstract

During the study on yeast diversity from natural samples in Viet Nam, we have collected 38 samples of flowers, fruits, leaves, litter and soils in Con Dao Island and isolated 54 yeast strains. They were identified based on morphology observation and sequences of D1/D2 domain of 26S rDNA. The results showed that they belonged to 13 genera, 28 species, of which 15 strains were suspected as 13 new species. Thirty-nine strains were identified as Ascomycetes belonging 7 genera, 11 species, and the fifteen remaining strains belonged to Basidomycetes, 6 genera and 13 species. The results also showed that four Ascomycetous and nine Basidomycetous isolated were suspected to be new species. The results also showed that Candida was the genus with highest number isolates-26 strains, and half of these were Candida rugosa. The most diverse species in this study was found in Cryptococcus genus with 7 species from 8 isolates only, and all of them were suspected to be new species. This study also proved that the samples had differences in yeast diversity and species composition among them. Therefore, Con Dao Island is multi potential to discover and publish new yeast species in Vietnam.