Solved one of the mysteries of male infertility
The man who (almost) ended up with the male infertility
“cities must prepare for climate change”
The UN: limiting global warming to 1.5 ° C would require “unprecedented changes”
climate change could pose a threat to male fertility, according to a study conducted by 10 researchers from universities of Poland and the Uk, which ensure that the heat waves damage sperm in insects, leading to negative impacts on fertility in several generations.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, indicates that male infertility during heat waves could help explain why climate change is having an impact on populations of species, such as extinctions related to climate during the last few years. Fertility tests for males can indicate the fertility issues and other evidence is supporting this idea of heat waves being at fault. “we Know that biodiversity is suffering due to climate change, but the causes and specific sensitivities are difficult to pin down. We have shown in this work that the sperm function is a trait that is especially sensitive when the environment heats up,” notes Matt Gage, from the University of East Anglia (Uk) and lead author of the study.
Gage added that, “since the role of the sperm is essential for reproduction and the viability of the population, these findings could provide an explanation of why biodiversity is suffering under climate change.”
“heat waves are extreme weather events particularly harmful. It is known that local extinctions occur when the temperature changes become too intense. We wanted to know why this happens. And a response could be related to the sperm”, she adds.
The scientists looked at the effects of heat waves in beetles, red flour (Tribolium castaneum), that were exposed to thermal conditions, standard or heat waves simulated for five days between five and seven degrees more than the optimum temperature. From there they analyzed the damage potential of the heat to the reproductive success, sperm function and quality of offspring.
sexual Behavior
The researchers found that heat waves reduced to half the amount of offspring that the male could produce and that a second episode of this kind almost sterilized. By contrast, females were not affected by the heat waves.
After the waves of heat experimental, males reduced sperm production in three quarters, and any sperm produced subsequently took a long time to migrate to the female organs and were more likely to die before fertilization.
in Addition, the heat waves caused a certain impact on the male sexual behavior because the males were mated with half the frequency, when there were no episodes of high temperatures, which caused damage to the fertility of three generations.
“it Is believed that beetles make up one fourth of the biodiversity, so that these results are very important to understand how to react the species to climate change. Research has also shown that the thermal shock may damage male reproduction in warm-blooded animals, and previous work has shown that this leads to infertility in mammals,” explains Kirs Sales, researcher, graduate of the University of East Anglia.
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