Saccharomycotina yeasts defy long-standing macroecological patterns
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- Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (United States); Vanderbilt University Department of Biological Sciences
- Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (United States)
- University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI (United States); Villanova University, PA (United States)
- Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (United States); University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC (United States)
- University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI (United States)
- South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou (China)
- Zhejiang University, Hangzhou (China)
- Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute, Utrecht (The Netherlands)
- University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
The Saccharomycotina yeasts (“yeasts” hereafter) are a fungal clade of scientific, economic, and medical significance. Yeasts are highly ecologically diverse, found across a broad range of environments in every biome and continent on earth; however, little is known about what rules govern the macroecology of yeast species and their range limits in the wild. Here, we trained machine learning models on 12,816 terrestrial occurrence records and 96 environmental variables to infer global distribution maps at ~1 km2 resolution for 186 yeast species (~15% of described species from 75% of orders) and to test environmental drivers of yeast biogeography and macroecology. We found that predicted yeast diversity hotspots occur in mixed montane forests in temperate climates. Diversity in vegetation type and topography were some of the greatest predictors of yeast species richness, suggesting that microhabitats and environmental clines are key to yeast diversity. We further found that range limits in yeasts are significantly influenced by carbon niche breadth and range overlap with other yeast species, with carbon specialists and species in high-diversity environments exhibiting reduced geographic ranges. Finally, yeasts contravene many long-standing macroecological principles, including the latitudinal diversity gradient, temperature-dependent species richness, and a positive relationship between latitude and range size (Rapoport’s rule). These results unveil how the environment governs the global diversity and distribution of species in the yeast subphylum. These high-resolution models of yeast species distributions will facilitate the prediction of economically relevant and emerging pathogenic species under current and future climate scenarios.
- Research Organization:
- Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0018409
- OSTI ID:
- 2370374
- Journal Information:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 121; ISSN 0027-8424
- Publisher:
- National Academy of SciencesCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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