Candida leandrae sp. nov., an asexual ascomycetous yeast species isolated from tropical plants

1 Centro de Estudos de Insetos Sociais e Departamento de Bioquímica e Microbiologia, Universidade Estadual Paulista – Unesp, CP 199, Rio Claro, SP, 13506-900, Brazil 2 Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7 3 Departamento de Microbiologia – ICB, CP 486, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, 31270-901, Brazil Correspondence Fernando C. Pagnocca pagnocca{at}rc.unesp.br The novel yeast species Candida leandrae is described based on eight isolates from decaying fruits of Leandra reversa Cogn. (Melastomataceae) in an Atlantic rainforest site in Brazil, one from a Convolvulaceae flower in Costa Rica and one from a drosophilid in Hawai'i. The strains differed in their colony morphology, one being butyrous and smooth and the other being filamentous and rugose. Sequences of the D1/D2 domains of the large-subunit rRNA gene from both morphotypes were identical. C. leandrae belongs to the Kodamaea clade and is closely related to Candida restingae . The two species can be separated on the basis of growth at 37 °C and the assimilation of melezitose, negative in the novel species. The type culture of C. leandrae is strain UNESP 00-64R T (=CBS 9735 T =NRRL Y-27757 T ). The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the large-subunit rRNA sequence of strain UNESP 00-64R T is AY449659 .