Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces paradoxus are used as model systems for molecular, cell and evolutionary biology; yet we know comparatively little of their ecology. One niche from which these species have been isolated is oak bark. There are no reports of these species from oak in the Southern Hemisphere. We describe the recovery of both S. cerevisiae and S. paradoxus from oak in New Zealand (NZ), and provide evidence for introgression between the species. Genetic inference shows that the oak S. cerevisiae are closely related to strains isolated from NZ and Australian vineyards, but that the S. paradoxus strains are very closely related to European isolates. This discovery is surprising as the current model of S. paradoxus biogeography suggests that global dispersal is rare. We test one idea to explain how members of the European S. paradoxus population might come to be in NZ: they were transported here along with acorns brought by migrants approximately 200 years ago. We show that S. paradoxus is associated with acorns and thus provide a potential mechanism for the unwitting global dispersal of S. paradoxus by humans.

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Being a sister species of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces uvarum shows great potential regarding the future of the wine industry. The sulfite tolerance of most S. uvarum strains is poor, however. This is a major flaw that limits its utility in the wine industry. In S. cerevisiae, FZF1 plays a positive role in the transcription of SSU1, which encodes a sulfite efflux transport protein that is critical for sulfite tolerance. Although FZF1 has previously been shown to play a role in sulfite tolerance in S. uvarum, there is little information about its action mechanism. To assess the function of FZF1, two over-expression vectors that contained different FZF1 genes, and one FZF1 silencing vector, were constructed and introduced into a sulfite-tolerant S. uvarum strain using electroporation. In addition, an FZF1-deletion strain was constructed. Both of the FZF1-over-expressing strains showed an elevated tolerance to sulfite, and the FZF1-deletion strain showed the opposite effect. Repression of FZF1 transcription failed, however, presumably due to the lack of alleles of DCR1 and AGO. The qRT-PCR analysis was used to examine changes in transcription in the strains. Surprisingly, neither over-expressing strain promoted SSU1 transcription, although MET4 and HAL4 transcripts significantly increased in both sulfite-tolerance increased strains. We conclude that FZF1 plays a different role in the sulfite tolerance of S. uvarum compared to its role in S. cerevisiae.