Collaborative Research: PurSUiT: Global Diversity, Distribution and Evolution of Pucciniomycotina Yeasts Inferred from a Tropical Oceanic Hotspot

Yeasts are important in industry, impact human health and food safety, and play critical roles in ecosystems. Yeasts’ simple body shape, and unique foraging strategies enable them to colonize habitats where few other organisms can survive, and where few scientists tend to search for fungi: such as within lichens, in streams and pools, and in high salt environments. It is estimated that scientists have discovered only 1% of the yeast species thought to exist on earth. This gap in knowledge of yeast diversity and distributions makes it difficult to understand the evolutionary history of the fungal tree of life, including mushrooms, medicines and symbionts upon which human livelihoods rely. Systematically collecting and describing these yeasts facilitates accurate identification of pathogens, and of the cryptic biological diversity comprising “microbiomes” that reside inside plants and animals. This project will focus on isolating and describing yeasts in the Basidiomycete class Pucciniomycotina, which are only distantly related to baker’s and brewer’s yeasts, and much less studied. The research will leverage the environmental diversity of Hawaiʻi, and the evolutionary diversity of zoo animals to maximize recovered yeast diversity from plant, animal, and environmental samples. The project will use a combination of genome sequencing, physiological data, and culture characteristics to publish formal descriptions and phylogenetic analysis of hundreds of novel species. The research will assess whether, and to what extent, yeasts co-evolved with their animal hosts. New insights into yeast diversity will be used to predict global species diversity, host/habitat specificity, and diversity hotspots. The project will increase the participation and research capacity of underserved groups (particularly Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders) via support for postdoctoral and student researchers, and formal training opportunities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.