Starmerella reginensis f.a., sp. nov. and Starmerella kourouensis f.a., sp. nov., isolated from flowers in French Guiana.

Analysis of yeasts isolated from various biotopes in French Guiana led to the identification of two strains isolated from flowers and designated CLIB 1634T and CLIB 1707T. Comparison of the D1/D2 domain of the large subunit (LSU D1/D2) rRNA gene sequences of CLIB 1634T and CLIB 1707T to those in the GenBank database revealed that these strains belong to the Starmerella clade. Strain CLIB 1634T was shown to diverge from the closely related Starmerella apicola type strain CBS 2868T with a sequence divergence of 1.34 and 1.30 %, in the LSU D1/D2 rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences respectively. Strain CLIB 1634T and Candida apicola CBS 2868T diverged by 3.81 and 14.96 % at the level of the protein-coding gene partial sequences EF-1α and RPB2, respectively. CLIB 1707T was found to have sequence divergence of 3.88 and 9.16 % in the LSU D1/D2 rRNA gene and ITS, respectively, from that of the most closely related species Starmerella ratchasimensis type strain CBS 10611T. The species Starmerella reginensis f.a., sp. nov. and Starmerella kourouensis f.a., sp. nov. are proposed to accommodate strains CLIB 1634T (=CBS 15247T) and CLIB 1707T (=CBS 15257T), respectively.

High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing of the microbial community associated with palm oil mill effluents of two oil processing systems.

Palm Oil Mill Effluents (POME) are complex fermentative substrates which habour diverse native microbial contaminants. However, knowledge on the microbiota community shift caused by the anthropogenic effects of POME in the environment is up to date still to be extensively documented. In this study, the bacterial and archaeal communities of POME from two palm oil processing systems (artisanal and industrial) were investigated by Illumina MiSeq Platform. Despite the common characteristics of these wastewaters, we found that their microbial communities were significantly different with regard to their diversity and relative abundance of their different Amplicon Sequence Variants (ASV). Indeed, POME from industrial plants harboured as dominant phyla Firmicutes (46.24%), Bacteroidetes (34.19%), Proteobacteria (15.11%), with the particular presence of Spirochaetes, verrucomicrobia and Synergistetes, while those from artisanal production were colonized by Firmicutes (92.06%), Proteobacteria (4.21%) and Actinobacteria (2.09%). Furthermore, 43 AVSs of archaea were detected only in POME from industrial plants and assigned to Crenarchaeota, Diapherotrites, Euryarchaeota and Nanoarchaeaeota phyla, populated mainly by many methane-forming archaea. Definitively, the microbial community composition of POME from both type of processing was markedly different, showing that the history of these ecosystems and various processing conditions have a great impact on each microbial community structure and diversity. By improving knowledge about this microbiome, the results also provide insight into the potential microbial contaminants of soils and rivers receiving these wastewaters.