===Environment and Survival===
Up until recently, ''Brettanomyces'' has been thought to occur naturally on the skins of fruit such as apples and grapes. However, there are only a handful of reports of ''Brettanomyces'' has rarely been being identified on the skins of fruit <ref>[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jib.154 Lentz, M., Putzke, T., Hessler, R. and Luman, E. (2014), Genetic and physiological characterization of yeast isolated from ripe fruit and analysis of fermentation and brewing potential, J. Inst. Brew., 120: 559– 564. DOI: 10.1002/jib.154.]</ref><ref name="Comitini">[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00415/abstract Occurrence of Brettanomyces bruxellensis on grape berries and in related winemaking cellar. Francesca Comitini, Lucia Oro, Laura Canonico, Valentina Marinelli, Maurizio Ciani. 2019. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00415.]</ref><ref name="smith_divol_2016"></ref><ref name="Schifferdecker" />. It is also thought to disperse via insects such as bees and fruit-flies (called "vectors" in the scientific literature), similar to how ''Saccharomyces'' travels, although direct evidence for this is lacking <ref>[https://youtu.be/G2nhUM5PIrg?t=309 Dr. Bryan Heit. BotB - Where (Do) The Wild Brettanomyces Roam?. ~5 mins in. Retrieved 07/10/2022.]</ref><ref name="Steensels">[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168160515001865 Brettanomyces yeasts — From spoilage organisms to valuable contributors to industrial fermentations. Jan Steensels, Luk Daenen, Philippe Malcorps, Guy Derdelinckx, Hubert Verachtert, Kevin J. Verstrepen. International Journal of Food Microbiology Volume 206, 3 August 2015, Pages 24–38.]</ref><ref>[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18077036 Survival patterns of Dekkera bruxellensis in wines and inhibitory effect of sulphur dioxide. f Barata A, Caldeira J, Botelheiro R, Pagliara D, Malfeito-Ferreira M, Loureiro V. 2008.]</ref><ref>[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12892920 Spoilage yeasts in the wine industry. Loureiro V, Malfeito-Ferreira M. 2003.]</ref>. For example, an ongoing survey of wild yeasts in most of the US which isolated nearly 2,000 isolates with 262 unique species has not yet found a single occurrence of ''Brettanomyces'' in the wild (so far they have only surveyed non-human inhabited wild areas of the US and Alaska; substrates sampled included leaves, soil, bark, moss, mushrooms, needles, pine cones, twigs/wood, and other plant matter) <ref>[https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.13.452236v1 Substrate, temperature, and geographical patterns among nearly 2,000 natural yeast isolates. William J. Spurley, Kaitlin J. Fisher, Quinn K. Langdon, Kelly V. Buh, Martin Jarzyna, Max A. B. Haase, Kayla Sylvester, Ryan V. Moriarty, Daniel Rodriguez, Angela Sheddan, Sarah Wright, Lisa Sorlie, Amanda Beth Hulfachor, Dana A. Opulente, Chris Todd Hittinger. bioRxiv 2021.07.13.452236; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.13.452236.]</ref>. ''Brettanomyces'' is known to be difficult to grow in a lab due to slow growth, specific nutrient requirements, or perhaps because of a "VBNC" state (see [[Wild_Yeast_Isolation#Wild_Brettanomyces|Wild ''Brettanomyces'']] for more information). More recently, techniques have been invented to more easily isolate and grow ''Brettanomyces''<ref>[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0944501306000231?via%3Dihub Development of an enrichment medium to detect Dekkera/Brettanomyces bruxellensis, a spoilage wine yeast, on the surface of grape berries. Vincent Renouf, Aline Lonvaud-Funel. 2007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micres.2006.02.006.]</ref><ref>[https://www.frontiersin.orgname="Comitini" /articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00415/abstract Occurrence of Brettanomyces bruxellensis on grape berries and in related winemaking cellar. Francesca Comitini1, Lucia Oro, Laura Canonico, Valentina Marinelli, Maurizio Ciani. 2019. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00415.]</ref>. There is more evidence that the natural habitat of ''Brettanomyces'' might actually be the root systems of certain plants, known as the [https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-rhizosphere-roots-soil-and-67500617/ "rhizosphere"]. The rhizosphere refers to the complex symbiotic community of microbe populations that live on or around the root system of plants. Wild strains of ''Brettanomyces'' have been found in the root systems of dill, common beans, sunflowers, maize, corn, jute, cassava, and grey mangroves found in the estuaries of Indonesia <ref>[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aab.12309 Weisany, W., Raei, Y., Salmasi, S., Sohrabi, Y. and Ghassemi-Golezani, K. (2016), Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi induced changes in rhizosphere, essential oil and mineral nutrients uptake in dill/common bean intercropping system. Ann Appl Biol, 169: 384-397. https://doi.org/10.1111/aab.12309.]</ref><ref>[https://archive.aessweb.com/index.php/5003/article/view/3333 I.O, S. ., & G.P, O. . (2012). Diversity of Fungal Populations in Soils Cultivated With Cassava Cultivar TMS 98/0505. Journal of Asian Scientific Research, 2(3), 116–123. Retrieved from https://archive.aessweb.com/index.php/5003/article/view/3333.]</ref><ref>[https://www.ajol.info/index.php/swj/article/view/149513 Rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil mycoflora of Corchorus olitorius (Jute). G.S. Olahan, I.O. Sule, T Garuba, Y.A. Salawu. Science World Journal. 2016.]</ref><ref>[https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/jbb/article/view/36023 NOERFITRYANI, Noerfitryani; HAMZAH, Hamzah. THE EXISTENCE OF ENTOMOPATHOGENIC FUNGI ON RICE PLANTS RHIZOSPHERE. International Journal of Biosciences and Biotechnology, p. 12-24, dec. 2017. ISSN 2655-9994. doi: https://doi.org/10.24843/IJBB.2017.v05.i01.p02.]</ref><ref>[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2452219818300259 Marcela Sarabia, Saila Cazares, Antonio González-Rodríguez, Francisco Mora, Yazmín Carreón-Abud, John Larsen, Plant growth promotion traits of rhizosphere yeasts and their response to soil characteristics and crop cycle in maize agroecosystems, Rhizosphere, Volume 6, 2018, Pages 67-73, ISSN 2452-2198, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rhisph.2018.04.002.]</ref><ref>[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1049964419303238 Nivien A. Nafady, Mohamed Hashem, Elhagag A. Hassan, Hoda A.M. Ahmed, Saad A. Alamri. The combined effect of arbuscular mycorrhizae and plant-growth-promoting yeast improves sunflower defense against Macrophomina phaseolina diseases. Biological Control. Volume 138, 2019, 104049. ISSN 1049-9644, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocontrol.2019.104049.]</ref><ref>[http://ejurnal.its.ac.id/index.php/sains_seni/article/view/5613 Isolation and Characterization of Yeast from Rhizosphere Avicennia Marina Wonorejo. Sitatun Zunaidah, Nur Hidayatul Alami. 2014. DOI: 10.12962/j23373520.v3i1.5613.]</ref>. See Dr. Bryan Heit's video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2nhUM5PIrg "Where (Do) The Wild Brettanomyces Roam?"] and [https://www.facebook.com/groups/MilkTheFunk/posts/5940213029340195 his comments in Milk The Funk], as well as [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrR7G_YyfmA "Philip Poole. Plant Control of the Rhizosphere Microbiome"]. For documented isolation attempts from plant rhizospheres, see [[Wild_Yeast_Isolation#Wild_Brettanomyces|Wild Yeast Isolation]].
The occurrence of ''Brettanomyces'' has been more commonly identified in industrial food processing areas (wine, beer, kombucha, soft drinks, dairy products, tea, sourdough, etc.) <ref name="Crauwels_2016">[https://academic.oup.com/femsyr/article-abstract/17/1/fow105/2670560/Fermentation-assays-reveal-differences-in-sugar?redirectedFrom=fulltext Fermentation assays reveal differences in sugar and (off-) flavor metabolism across different Brettanomyces bruxellensis strains. Fermentation assays reveal differences in sugar and (off-) flavor metabolism across different Brettanomyces bruxellensis strains. Sam Crauwels, Filip Van Opstaele, Barbara Jaskula-Goiris, Jan Steensels, Christel Verreth, Lien Bosmans, Caroline Paulussen, Beatriz Herrera-Malaver, Ronnie de Jonge, Jessika De Clippeleer, Kathleen Marchal, Gorik De Samblanx, Kris A. Willems, Kevin J. Verstrepen, Guido Aerts, and Bart Lievens. 2016]</ref>. For example, ''B bruxelensis'', ''B. anomala'', and ''B. custersianus'' have mostly been isolated from wine or beer production, while ''B. naardenensis'' has mostly been isolated from soda production <ref name="Tiukova_2019">[https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/7/11/489 Assembly and Analysis of the Genome Sequence of the Yeast Brettanomyces naardenensis CBS 7540. Ievgeniia A. Tiukova, Huifeng Jiang, Jacques Dainat, Marc P. Hoeppner, Henrik Lantz, Jure Piskur, Mats Sandgren, Jens Nielsen, Zhenglong Gu, and Volkmar Passoth. 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms7110489.]</ref>. ''Brettanomyces'' is not considered to be airborne; however, one study has demonstrated a very small amount of cells in the air at wineries where wine with ''Brettanomyces'' in it was being handled (most of the yeasts found in the air were ''Aureobasidium'' and ''Cryptococcus'', which aren't considered spoilage organisms in beer and wine). This set of studies also determined that very specific methodology was needed in order capture ''Brettanomyces'' from the air, and indicated that the yeast was "stressed". While it is possible for ''Brettanomyces'' to be briefly carried by gusts of air, it only happens in the vicinity where the ''Brettanomyces'' beer or wine is being bottled (more so) or is actively fermenting (less so) <ref>[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956713513002284 Screening of yeast mycoflora in winery air samples and their risk of wine contamination. E. Ocón, P. Garijo, S. Sanz, C. Olarte, R. López, P. Santamaría, A.R. Gutiérrez. Food Control Volume 34, Issue 2, December 2013, Pages 261–267.]</ref>. Good cleaning and sanitation and cold temperatures should be employed to keep ''Brettanomyces'' from contaminating other equipment; however, flying insects are also a potential cause for contamination of ''Brettanomyces'' (although evidence for this is lacking).