YEAST COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATED WITH DROSPHILA SPECIES AND RELATED FLIES IN AN EASTERN OAK-PINE FOREST - A COMPARISON WITH WESTERN COMMUNITIES

Intestinal yeast mycobiota were studied in 14 species of Drosophila and in the drosophilid species Chymomyza amoena, captured art Finery Provincial Park, Ontario. Over 56 yeast species, some undescribed, were isolated. These yeast communities were compared with those from two similar surveys conducted in western portions of North America. The community structures were influenced significantly by the habitat rather than phylogeny of the flies. Geographic separation was a factor affecting yeast taxa frequencies in the fly species, but it was largely overshadowed by ecological factors when the communities were described physiologically. The notion that habitats are filled by yeasts which add up to a suitable physiological potential, more or less independently of their taxonomic affinities, was thus confirmed.