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Habitat-specificity and diversity of culturable cold-adapted yeasts of a cold-based glacier in the Tianshan Mountains, northwestern China

  • Applied microbial and cell physiology
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Abstract

Asian cold-based glacier yeasts with respect to their abundance, distribution, and taxonomy, in contrast to other continental cryosphere areas, have been little investigated. The present study reports the diversity and phylogeny of culturable cold-adapted yeasts in six cold habitats of the Glacier No.1 in the Tianshan Mountains (northwestern China). Of the total 591 yeast isolates, 401 were identified as basidiomycetous yeasts represented by 41 species of 15 genera, while 190 ascomycetous yeast isolates were assigned to the 8 species of 7 genera. The most prevalent species was Candida akabanensis with a 19.8% frequency of occurrence, followed by Vishniacozyma victoriae (16.4%) and Diutina rugosa (9.98%), of which V. victoriae was the only yeast species common to all six glacial habitats. Variability on the component and abundance of yeast taxa among glacial habitats primarily displayed in four dominant yeast genera, namely Candida, Vishniacozyma, Filobasidium, and Naganishia. However, network analysis illustrated that most of 32 rare yeast populations were habitat-specific, implying that the low-abundance yeast population was more easily influenced by the local habitat conditions (species sorting). Based on indicator species analyses, the subglacial habitat was characterized by psychrotolerant and/or psychrophilic yeast taxa.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41271268, 40961002, 41140009).

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  1. School of Food Science and Technology, Shihezi University, Fourth Nouth Ave., Shihezi, 832000, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China

    Baolong Luo, Hailong Sun, Yan Zhang, Yanling Gu, Wenli Yan, Ruirui Zhang & Yongqing Ni

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  1. Baolong Luo
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  2. Hailong Sun
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  3. Yan Zhang
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  5. Wenli Yan
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Baolong Luo, Hailong Sun, and Yan Zhang contributed equally to this article.

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Correspondence to Yongqing Ni.

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Luo, B., Sun, H., Zhang, Y. et al. Habitat-specificity and diversity of culturable cold-adapted yeasts of a cold-based glacier in the Tianshan Mountains, northwestern China. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 103, 2311–2327 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-018-9512-5

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