Female fruit flies cannot protect stored sperm from high temperature damage

Recently, it has been demonstrated that heat-induced male sterility is likely to shape population persistence as climate change progresses. However, an under-explored possibility is that females may be able to successfully store and preserve sperm at temperatures that sterilise males, which could ameliorate the impact of male infertility on populations. Here, we test whether females from two fruit fly species can protect stored sperm from a high temperature stress. We find that sperm carried by female Drosophila virilis are almost completely sterilised by high temperatures, whereas sperm carried by female Zaprionus indianus show only slightly reduced fertility. Heat-shocked D. virilis females can recover fertility when allowed to remate, suggesting that the delivered heat shock is damaging stored sperm and not directly damaging females in this species. The temperatures required to reduce fertility of mated females are substantially lower than the temperatures required to damage mature sperm in males, suggesting that females are worse than males at protecting mature sperm. This suggests that female sperm storage is unlikely to ameliorate the impacts of high temperature fertility losses in males, and instead exacerbates fertility costs of high temperatures, representing an important determinant of population persistence during climate change.

Automated summary

Recent research suggests that heat-induced male sterility may affect population persistence, but little is known about the ability of females to protect and preserve sperm at high temperatures. This study examines whether females from two fruit fly species can protect stored sperm from heat stress and finds that the fertility of stored sperm is greatly reduced in one species but only slightly reduced in the other.