LAUSR

Rapid environmental changes will be the major challenge that most biota will have to deal with in the near future. Extreme events, such as marine heatwaves, are becoming more frequent and could be spatially uniform at a regional scale for a relatively long period of time. To date, most research on heatwaves have focused on sessile organisms, but these extreme events can also impact mobile species. Here we simulated a three-week marine heatwave to investigate its effects on the male reproductive performance of a Mediterranean Sea emblematic species, the European sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax. Males from the control condition (≈ 13 °C) produced significantly more sperm than those exposed to a relatively warm thermal treatment (≈ 16 °C). However, neither the percentage of motile spermatozoa nor most of the other sperm motility parameters were significantly affected by the rearing temperature, over the whole period. Overall, our results suggest only moderated effects of a potential winter heatwave on the reproductive performance of male European sea bass. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.