top of page
Writer's pictureAoife

Fantastic Yeasts and Where to Find Them

Updated: Sep 8, 2020


No its not a typo we mean Yeasts and not Beasts. We weren't extras in the latest Harry Potter Prequel, we have been helping undergraduates in UCD with an amazing project.

The Wild Yeast Project at University College Dublin is surveying the yeasts living in Irish soil. In September we joined pupils at 15 primary schools from 13 counties in Ireland in collecting soil samples for study. Undergraduates extracted the yeasts from the soil samples we sent them.

They found 16 different yeast species in soil samples collected including two that have only been described once before.

Below is a picture of some of the yeasts grown from our samples.


One of the yeasts found by New Ross Educate Together was: Candida tropicalis.

Yeasts are fungi – they belong to the same family as mushrooms. However, yeasts often have only one or a few cells. We don’t know what kinds of yeasts live in Irish soil, but we do know that they are required to keep the soil healthy.

If you'd like to find out more about the project click


72 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Commenti


bottom of page