ABSTRACT
Chemotaxonomy or biochemical systematics is based on chemical characteristics, and has been an important part of taxonomy of many organisms for several decades. The development of analytical and molecular biology methods and the associated instrumentation has led to a large number of different approaches to chemotaxonomy. Chemotaxonomic approaches with the ascomycetous yeasts have been mainly based on physiological and chemical tests, cell wall biopolymers, quantitative profiles of sterols and total fatty acids, and molecular methods. A considerable number of chemotaxonomic studies have been carried out within the mitosporic ascomycetes. The indirect characterization of surface biopolymers of fungi may be based on differences in hydrophobicity and electrokinetic properties. Chemotaxonomic methods can provide complex data sets and multivariate statistical techniques such as cluster analysis or ordination methods have been used to analyze such data. Phylogenetic analyses can also be undertaken with chemical data and numerical methods.
