Introducing some plant epiphytic yeasts from Iran

Yeasts are single–celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungi kingdom. This group are very important in biological control, so that several species have been produced and supplied as biocontrol products at the commercial level. In Iran, several types of yeast have been isolated and introduced as biocontrol agent. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to know the yeast biodiversity from agricultural microflora. For this reason, epiphytic yeasts on crop plants and fruit trees were collected from the Northern provinces and some other parts of Iran during 2015–2016. The yeast isolates were recovered on malt agar (MA) medium. All yeast isolates were basically grouped according to the morphological characteristics of colonies. Based on morphological charecterestics such as color and colony form, 24 isolates were selected as reperesentatives for identification. The results of biochemical tests using Simple Matching Coefficient in 87% showed that all isolates are grouped into 14 separate clusters. Twenty–four isolates representatives of 14 groups were selected and analyzed by partial sequencing of ITS1–5.8S–ITS2 region with ITS1 and ITS4 primers. All isolates were identified as Aureobasidium pullulans, Candida membranifaciens, Cystobasidium minutum, Debaryomyces hansenii, Filobasidium magnum, Metschnikowia koreensi, Naganishia albida, Ogataea zsoltii, Papiliotrema flavescens, Rhodotorula glutinis, R. mucilaginosa and Sporobolomyces ruberrimus. Among them, four species i.e. O. zsoltii, M. koreensi, P. flavescens, C. minutum are new records to the Iranian mycoflora. All yeasts were described by macroscopic and microscopic morphological characters including colony color and shape; cell size and shape; and by location of isolation.