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 1634 and CLIB 1707 . Comparison of the D1/D2 domain of the large subunit (LSU D1/D2) rRNA gene sequences of CLIB 1634 and CLIB 1707 to those in the GenBank database revealed that these strains belong to the Starmerella clade. Strain CLIB 1634 was shown to diverge from the closely related Starmerella apicola type strain CBS 2868 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 1634 and Candida apicola CBS 2868 diverged by 3.81 and 14.96 % at the level of the protein-coding gene partial sequences EF-1α and RPB2, respectively. CLIB 1707 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 10611 . The species Starmerella reginensis f.a., sp. nov. and Starmerella kourouensis f.a., sp. nov. are proposed to accommodate strains CLIB 1634 (=CBS 15247 ) and CLIB 1707 (=CBS 15257 ), respectively.