Yeasts, cactophilic

Pichia kluyveri. Many of the cactophilic yeast are still in the genus Pichia, although many species have been transferred out of the genus (Kurtzman and... 

The relationship between cactophilic Drosophila and the cactophilic yeast community is a mutualism. However, the benefits provided by yeast to a fly or vice versa are general enough that, in most cases, more than one species of yeast or fly... 

Geographic (narrow) endemism is promoted by factors that limit dispersal. There are at least three consequences of vectoring by Drosophila that promote endemism in cactophilic yeast by limiting dispersal. The first is that the ambit of an adult fly is much smaller than the distance a desiccation-resistant spore might... 

There is another question pertaining to the cactophilic system that remains to be asked. Why are cactophilic yeast dispersed by animals instead of wind, which seems adequate for the bacteria found in the system There is no direct answer to this question in the data presented here. The proximal cause is most probably history in that yeast have been introduced to the cactophilic system by insects and, so, were already animal-dispersed. Starmer et al. (2003) found evidence for multiple invasions of the cactophilic habitat by yeast from fruit rots and slime fluxes (presumably older habitats). Yeast in both of these habitats are animal dispersed. 

The origin of the association between yeast and Drosophila is not likely to be found in study of the cactophilic yeast. 

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