Temperature sensitive male fertility; uncovering the mechanisms that make fertility in some species more vulnerable to high temperature

The climate is warming, and this is predicted to result in an increase in extremes of temperature. Understanding how this will affect the survival and distribution of organisms is vital if we are to prevent extinctions, and invasions by harmful pests. The impacts of climate change are often estimated by examining the temperatures that kill animals. However, we may be underestimating the impact that non-lethal high temperatures have on organisms. In most animals, from beetles to birds to badgers, males typically lose their fertility at a far lower temperature than that required to kill them. This also affects livestock, so that breeds which do well in temperate countries can be infertile in the tropics. Even humans, despite being able to control temperatures using clothes, houses, and air conditioning, show evidence of reductions in fertility during heatwaves. If increasing temperatures cause all the males in an animal population to become sterile, then that population will not survive, even if the temperatures are nowhere near high enough to actually kill any animals.

Recently we systematically tested the impact of temperature on the fertility of 43 species of fruit fly. In more than half, males lost fertility at a much cooler temperatures than their lethal limits. We then looked at where the flies were found worldwide. We found that across species and habitats, the highest temperature a species experiences in nature was far better predicted by sterilising temperature limits than by lethal temperature limits. This strongly suggests that temperature-induced sterility really does matter in nature, and that distributions of many species are limited by their ability to remain fertile at high temperatures. If so, then we are likely underestimating the impact of climate change on species, because we are only now realising that losses of fertility may be a major problem.

However, very little is known about the physiological and genetic processes which mean species are...