Unveiling the Diversity, Ecology, and Biotechnological Potential of Culturable Marine Yeasts in Western Mediterranean Coastal Ecosystems

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 415 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Soto T, Martínez-Rodrigo A (2026). Unveiling the Diversity, Ecology, and Biotechnological Potential of Culturable Marine Yeasts in Western Mediterranean Coastal Ecosystems. Version 1.1. Pensoft Publishers. Occurrence dataset. https://ipt.pensoft.net/resource?r=marineyeastumu&v=1.1

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Pensoft Publishers. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: e445db0d-62dc-4a01-a25e-3a8e8c8d2eab.  Pensoft Publishers publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Bulgaria.

Keywords

Occurrence data; marine yeasts; Fungi; Mediterranean Sea; Murcia; seawater; sediment; culturable fungi; ; GBIF; ITS; LSU

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

Field sampling was carried out along ~250 km of the Murcia coastline (southeastern Spain, Western Mediterranean Sea) across four consecutive seasons, from autumn 2024 to summer 2025.

Taxonomic Coverage

No Description available

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

Coastal ecosystems are dynamic environments characterized by strong seasonal variability in physicochemical parameters and biological communities. In the western Mediterranean, the Region of Murcia (SE Spain) is characterized by notable biodiversity and ecological heterogeneity, encompassing diverse habitats, including rocky shores, sandy beaches, seagrass meadows, and the Mar Menor, one of Europe’s largest hypersaline lagoons. Within these systems, marine yeasts play critical ecological roles in organic matter recycling and produce metabolites of biotechnological and medical interest. This study presents the first comprehensive survey of culturable marine yeasts from the Mediterranean coast of the Region of Murcia. From seawater and sediment samples, 415 strains were identified via ITS and LSU rRNA sequencing, revealing 90 species across 44 genera, including 78 known taxa and 12 potentially novel ones. Most isolates were assigned to the phylum Ascomycota (62%), primarily distributed among the classes Pichiomycetes, Dothideomycetes, Saccharomycetes and Dipodascomycetes, whereas Basidiomycota accounted for the remaining 38%, mainly comprising the classes Tremellomycetes and Microbotryomycetes. The genera most represented in both seawater and sediment were Rhodotorula and Candida, and approximately 10% of the isolates corresponded to stress-tolerant black yeast-like fungi (Aureobasidium spp., Hortaea werneckii, Exophiala oligosperma, and Zalaria alba), a group notable for its taxonomic novelty and valuable biotechnological traits. Culturable yeast assemblages displayed pronounced spatiotemporal variability, with diversity generally increasing during milder seasons and in areas influenced by anthropogenic activity, suggesting the combined effect of natural gradients and human-driven alterations. Representative strains exhibited broad enzymatic capabilities, producing extracellular cellulases, proteases, xylanases, amylases, chitinases, and pectinases, underscoring their ecological role in organic matter turnover and nutrient cycling. Our findings provide novel insights into the taxonomic composition and metabolic potential of marine yeast recovered from the Mediterranean Sea and set the basis for their future exploitation in industrial and environmental biotechnology.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Field sampling was conducted along approximately 250 km of the Murcia coastline, southeastern Spain, Western Mediterranean Sea, from autumn 2024 to summer 2025. Seawater and sediment samples were collected seasonally at ten coastal sites representing different geomorphological features and environmental gradients. At each site, seawater samples of 3 L and sediment samples of 100 g were collected in triplicate at surface level using sterile glass containers.

Method step description:

1. Seawater samples were processed by filtration of 1 L through 0.45 µm membranes. Sediment samples were processed by resuspension of 10 g sediment in sterile saline solution, followed by filtration and culture-dependent isolation. To complement the filtration procedure and enhance the recovery of viable yeasts potentially present at low concentrations, an enrichment protocol was also applied. Yeast and yeast-like colonies were purified, preserved, and identified using ITS and/or LSU rDNA sequencing.

Additional Metadata