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A review of the evidence that many organisms, from insects to birds to mammals to plants, are likely to show serious losses of fertility at temperatures well below their lethal limits. The evidence suggests male fertility is particularly vulnerable.
Male fertility, and the fertility of sperm stored in mated females, is substantially impaired in seed beetles at high temperatures. Females are much less affected. Some evidence of transgenerational effects.
Evidence that fertility shows local adaptation in Drosophila subobscura populations across Europe, with Swedish flies losing fertility at lower temperatures than Spanish flies.
Male and females can respond to heat shocks by plastically altering their gametes, making them more robust against high temperatures, in a flour beetle.
Even high body temperature vertebrates (zebra finches) that live in deserts show substantial losses of sperm quality at temperatures they are likely to experience in nature.