China is one of the earliest regions to consume alcoholic beverages in the world. More and more ancient alcoholic beverage residues have been found in…

We visited the Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts in May to photograph the annual spawning of the horseshoe crabs, ancient-...

April 9, 2026C. diff (short for Clostridioides difficile) is a serious infection that affects the gut. It can cause intense diarrhea, painful cramping, and extreme fatigue—sometimes lasting for weeks....

Bircham et al. show that traditional European farmhouse brewing preserves genetically diverse, sexually competent Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations that are genetically and phenotypically distinct ...

A new probiotic Saccharomyces ‘boulardii’ yeast strain with diminished virulence is developed using experimental infection and observations on in-host selection, achieved through the deletion of the E...

Yeast is a microbiology journal for research in the rapidly moving field of yeast biology. We publish the most significant developments in unicellular fungi.

Aspergillus flavus is a globally important human pathogen and agricultural contaminant, while its domesticated relative A. oryzae is widely used in food fermentation and biotechnology. Despite their importance, the evolutionary relationship, population structure and domestication history of these fungi remain unresolved. Here, we present the first global population genomic analysis of 639 A. flavus and A. oryzae isolates from clinical, environmental and food-fermentation sources across multiple continents. Our analyses reveal a complex evolutionary landscape comprising well-separated clades interspersed with highly admixed mosaic groups and potential evidence for multiple independent domestication events giving rise to A. oryzae. Clinical A. flavus isolates are distributed across several clades and mosaic groups, some overlapping with fermentation strains, highlighting an apparent role of domestication and admixture in shaping pathogen diversity. These results challenge current species boundaries and provide a framework for understanding evolutionary history, taxonomy and pangenomic architecture in these fungi, with broad implications for pathogenicity, food safety, biocontrol and metagenomic surveillance.