Metschnikowia vanudenii sp. nov. and Metschnikowia lachancei sp. nov., from flowers and associated insects in North America

Abstract

Two new species of the ascosporic yeast genus Metschnikowia were isolated from nectaries and associated muscoid flies of flowers from the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) in North America, and are described as Metschnikowia vanudenii [type strain=PYCC 4650. As with the previously described Metschnikowia gruessii, M. vanudenii has vegetative cells with an 'aeroplane' or cross-like configuration, produces ovoid chlamydospores and forms ellipsoidopedunculate asci with two acicular ascospores. Metschnikowia lachancei is distinguished from other Metschnikowia species by formation of club-shaped asci with 1-2 thick clavate ascospores. The phylogenetic positions of the proposed new species within Metschnikowia were determined from sequence analysis of the D1/D2 domain of 26S rDNA. The new species show low nuclear DNA relatedness with neighbouring taxa.

Metschnikowia viticola sp. nov., a new yeast species from grape

“…Others, such as C. kofuensis (Mikata et al 1999), may be presumed nonsporulating diploids, supposing that chlamydospores are formed by diploid cells only, as was demonstrated by Pitt and Miller (1968) in the case of M. pulcherrima and M. reukaufii. The latter assumption is not supported by the observation of chlamydospores (Gime´nez-Jurado et al 2003) in the cultures of supposed haploid strains of the recently described Metschnikowia vanudenii.…”

Multilocus Sequence Analysis of Nectar Pseudomonads Reveals High Genetic Diversity and Contrasting Recombination Patterns

“…Several novel bacteria and yeast species inhabiting floral nectar have been described so far (e.g. [93]–[96]) and the number of new described species is expected to increase as a higher number of nectars from different angiosperm lineages are sampled.…”

Phylogenetic analysis of the angiosperm-floricolous insect–yeast association: Have yeast and angiosperm lineages co-diversified?

“…Metschnikowia bicuspidata var. bicuspidata is part of the biota of hypersaline waters (Butinar et al, 2005) and seven other species are able to grow in an environment with high concentration of sugars, namely the floral nectar of angiosperms (BryschHerzberg, 2004;Giménez-Jurado et al, 2003;Peay et al, 2012). Metschnikowia species (and anamorphs) may be terrestrial or aquatic (as free-living forms or as invertebrate parasites).…”