FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 93, 2017, fw223 doi: 10.1093/femsec/fw223 Advance Access Publication Date: 27 October 2016 Research Article RESEARCH ARTICLE Drivers of yeast community composition in the litter and soil of a temperate forest Tereza Maˇ s´ ınov ´ a 1, ∗ , Barbara Doreen Bahnmann 1 , Tom ´ aˇ sVˇ etrovsk ´ y 1 , Michal Tomˇ sovsk ´ y 2 , Kristina Merunkov ´ a 3 and Petr Baldrian 1 1 Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology of the CAS, V´ ıde ˇ nsk ´ a 1083, 14220 Praha 4, Czech Republic, 2 Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Zemˇ edˇ elsk ´ a 3, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic and 3 Department of Botany and Zoology, Masaryk University, Kotl´ aˇ rsk ´ a 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic ∗ Corresponding author: Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology of the CAS, V´ ıde ˇ nsk ´ a 1083, 14220 Praha 4, Czech Republic. Tel: +420-721443426; Fax: +420-241062384; E-mail: tereza.masinova@biomed.cas.cz One sentence summary: We used amplicon sequencing of environmental DNA to describe the composition of yeast communities in European temperate forest soil and to identify the potential biotic and abiotic drivers of community assembly. Editor: Wietse de Boer ABSTRACT Fungi represent a group of soil microorganisms fulflling important ecological functions. Although several studies have shown that yeasts represent a signifcant proportion of fungal communities, our current knowledge is based mainly on cultivation experiments. In this study, we used amplicon sequencing of environmental DNA to describe the composition of yeast communities in European temperate forest and to identify the potential biotic and abiotic drivers of community assembly. Based on the analysis of ITS2 PCR amplicons, yeasts represented a substantial proportion of fungal communities ranging from 0.4 to 14.3% of fungal sequences in soil and 0.2 to 9.9% in litter. The species richness at individual sites was 28 ± 9 in soil and 31 ± 11 in litter. The basidiomycetous yeasts dominated over ascomycetous ones. In litter, yeast communities differed signifcantly among beech-, oak- and spruce-dominated stands. Drivers of community assembly are probably more complex in soils and comprise the effects of environmental conditions and vegetation. Keywords: yeast ecology; soil microbiology; metagenomics; yeasts in soil; microbial ecology; forest INTRODUCTION Fungi represent an important group of microorganisms in for- est soil and litter. High-throughput sequencing methods have shown that a signifcant proportion of these communities is composed of yeasts (e.g. Buee et al. 2009; Voˇ r´ ıˇ skov ´ a and Baldrian 2013). Yeasts are a taxonomically heterogeneous group of fungi defned by their ability to propagate in a unicellular form and includes members of various orders within Ascomycota and Ba- sidiomycota (e.g. Botha 2011; Kurtzman, Fell and Boekhout 2011). Despite their considerable abundance in forests, our knowl- edge of their ecological importance in this environment is limited. Yeasts are found worldwide, and up to 130 yeast species have been reported specifcally from soils (Yurkov, Kemler and Begerow 2012). Although their relevance for soil functioning is not yet fully understood (Botha 2011), it is known that soil yeasts are able to utilize a wide spectrum of carbon sources, includ- ing cellulose, hemicellulose and phenol, as well as products of the enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic plant materials (e.g. Sampaio 1999; Middelhoven, Scorzetti and Fell 2001; Margesin, Fonteyne and Redl 2005; DeRito and Madsen 2009; ˇ Stursov ´ a et al. Received: 8 April 2016; Accepted: 26 October 2016 C  FEMS 2016. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com 1 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/femsec/article/93/2/fiw223/2617552 by guest on 14 September 2022