Evolution of ecological dominance of yeast species in high-sugar environments.

ABSTRACT: In budding yeasts, fermentation in the presence of oxygen evolved around the time of a whole genome duplication (WGD) and is thought to confer dominance in high-sugar environments because ethanol is toxic to many species. Although there are many fermentative yeast species, only Saccharomyces cerevisiae consistently dominates wine fermentations. In this study, we use coculture experiments and intrinsic growth rate assays to examine the relative fitness of non-WGD and WGD yeast species across environments to assess when S. cerevisiae's ability to dominate high-sugar environments arose. We show that S. cerevisiae dominates nearly all other non-WGD and WGD species except for its sibling species S. paradoxus in both grape juice and a high-sugar rich medium. Of the species we tested, S. cerevisi

SUBMITTER: Williams KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4751874 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature