Assessment of yeast diversity in soils under different management regimes

Human activities, land management and climate change all have great impact on soil biology, but our knowledge of biodiversity of soil organisms is still very limited. Therefore, we assessed responses of soil yeasts to land management, and analysed 57 soils showing different land use from three distinct localities. We isolated and identified molecularly a total of 40 yeasts including several new species. Overall, species composition of different localities was very heterogeneous and nearly half of the species were found in a single site only.The analysis of species abundance and community composition revealed a strong long-term effect of forest replacement by grassland vegetation. Unlike forests, grasslands harbour predominantly ascomycetous yeasts and their proportion increases with management intensity. In forests, evenness of yeast communities followed the gradient of land management intensity and natural beech forests harboured the most unevenly structured community, thereby mirroring the evenness of plant communities.

► We analyse responses of yeasts to land management.
► We survey 57 grassland and forest soils from three distinct localities in Germany.
► We isolated and identified molecularly 40 yeasts including several new species.
► We found a strong long-term effect of forest replacement by grassland vegetation.
► Abundance of ascomycetes and evenness of yeast community reflect land management.