In 1981, scientists discovered that female fish exposed to high temperatures developed testes instead of ovaries. Since then, over 1,100 studies on different animal species, including 400 on freshwater fish, have found similar results.
This raises several questions.
Why does this happen? How can this be explained, and does it harm long-term fish populations? Our research has shown that a key factor in explaining this is the over-production of stress hormones as a result of higher temperatures.
