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The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea)
The inebriation of wild African elephants from eating the ripened and rotting fruit of the marula tree is a persistent myth in Southern Africa. However, the yeasts responsible for alcoholic fermentation to intoxicate the elephants remain poorly documented. In this study, we considered Botswana, a co...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10581541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37854251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/femsmc/xtad018 |
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author | Makopa, Tawanda Proceed Modikwe, Gorata Vrhovsek, Urska Lotti, Cesare Sampaio, José Paulo Zhou, Nerve |
author_facet | Makopa, Tawanda Proceed Modikwe, Gorata Vrhovsek, Urska Lotti, Cesare Sampaio, José Paulo Zhou, Nerve |
author_sort | Makopa, Tawanda Proceed |
collection | PubMed |
description | The inebriation of wild African elephants from eating the ripened and rotting fruit of the marula tree is a persistent myth in Southern Africa. However, the yeasts responsible for alcoholic fermentation to intoxicate the elephants remain poorly documented. In this study, we considered Botswana, a country with the world's largest population of wild elephants, and where the marula tree is indigenous, abundant and protected, to assess the occurrence and biodiversity of yeasts with a potential to ferment and subsequently inebriate the wild elephants. We collected marula fruits from over a stretch of 800 km in Botswana and isolated 106 yeast strains representing 24 yeast species. Over 93% of these isolates, typically known to ferment simple sugars and produce ethanol comprising of high ethanol producers belonging to Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, and Pichia, and intermediate ethanol producers Wickerhamomyces, Zygotorulaspora, Candida, Hanseniaspora, and Kluyveromyces. Fermentation of marula juice revealed convincing fermentative and aromatic bouquet credentials to suggest the potential to influence foraging behaviour and inebriate elephants in nature. There is insufficient evidence to refute the aforementioned myth. This work serves as the first work towards understanding the biodiversity marula associated yeasts to debunk the myth or approve the facts. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10581541 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105815412023-10-18 The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea) Makopa, Tawanda Proceed Modikwe, Gorata Vrhovsek, Urska Lotti, Cesare Sampaio, José Paulo Zhou, Nerve FEMS Microbes Research Article The inebriation of wild African elephants from eating the ripened and rotting fruit of the marula tree is a persistent myth in Southern Africa. However, the yeasts responsible for alcoholic fermentation to intoxicate the elephants remain poorly documented. In this study, we considered Botswana, a country with the world's largest population of wild elephants, and where the marula tree is indigenous, abundant and protected, to assess the occurrence and biodiversity of yeasts with a potential to ferment and subsequently inebriate the wild elephants. We collected marula fruits from over a stretch of 800 km in Botswana and isolated 106 yeast strains representing 24 yeast species. Over 93% of these isolates, typically known to ferment simple sugars and produce ethanol comprising of high ethanol producers belonging to Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, and Pichia, and intermediate ethanol producers Wickerhamomyces, Zygotorulaspora, Candida, Hanseniaspora, and Kluyveromyces. Fermentation of marula juice revealed convincing fermentative and aromatic bouquet credentials to suggest the potential to influence foraging behaviour and inebriate elephants in nature. There is insufficient evidence to refute the aforementioned myth. This work serves as the first work towards understanding the biodiversity marula associated yeasts to debunk the myth or approve the facts. Oxford University Press 2023-10-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10581541/ /pubmed/37854251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/femsmc/xtad018 Text en © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com |
spellingShingle | Research Article Makopa, Tawanda Proceed Modikwe, Gorata Vrhovsek, Urska Lotti, Cesare Sampaio, José Paulo Zhou, Nerve The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea) |
title | The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea) |
title_full | The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea) |
title_fullStr | The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea) |
title_full_unstemmed | The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea) |
title_short | The marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (Sclerocarya birrea) |
title_sort | marula and elephant intoxication myth: assessing the biodiversity of fermenting yeasts associated with marula fruits (sclerocarya birrea) |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10581541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37854251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/femsmc/xtad018 |
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