Yeast identification in floral nectar of Mimulus aurantiacus (Invited)

Nectar is such a sugar-rich resource that serves as a natural habitat in which microbes thrive. As a result, yeasts arrive to nectar on the bodies of pollinators such as hummingbirds and bees. Yeasts use the sugar in nectar for their own needs when introduced. This research focuses on the identification of different types of yeast that are found in the nectar of Mimulus aurantiacus (commonly known as sticky monkey-flower). Unopened Mimulus aurantiacus flower buds were tagged at Jasper Ridge and bagged three days later. Floral nectar was then extracted and plated on potato dextrose agar. Colonies on the plates were isolated and DNA was extracted from each sample using QIAGEN DNeasy Plant Mini Kit. The DNA was amplified through PCR and ran through gel electrophoresis. The PCR product was used to clone the nectar samples into an E.coli vector. Finally, a phylogenetic tree was created by BLAST searching sequences in GenBank using the Internal Transcribed Space (ITS) locus. It was found that 18 of the 50 identified species were Candida magnifica, 14 was Candida rancensis, 6 were Crytococcus albidus and there were 3 or less of the following: Starmella bombicola, Candida floricola, Aureobasidium pullulans, Pichia kluyvera, Metschnikowa cibodaserisis, Rhodotorua colostri, and Malassezia globosa. The low diversity of the yeast could have been due to several factors: time of collection, demographics of Jasper Ridge, low variety of pollinators, and sugar concentration of the nectar. The results of this study serve as a necessary first step for a recently started research project on ecological interactions between plants, pollinators, and nectar-living yeast. More generally, this research studies the use of the nectar-living yeast community as a natural microcosm for addressing basic questions about the role of dispersal and competitive and facilitative interactions in ecological succession.