Shifts in survival and reproduction after chronic warming enhance the potential of a marine copepod to persist under extreme heat events.The study of a species' thermal tolerance and vital rates responses provides useful metrics to characterize its vulnerability to ocean warming.  Under prolonged thermal stress, plastic and adaptive processes can adjust the physiology of organisms.  Yet it is uncertain whether the species can expand their upper thermal limits to cope with rapid and extreme changes in environmental temperature.  After multigenerational warming, the upper tolerance to acute exposure (24 h) increased by 1-1.3°C, although this enhancement decreased to 0.3-0.8°C after longer thermal stress (7 days).  No shift in the thermal breadth of the reproductive response was observed.  Yet the fecundity rates of the warm-reared copepods in the upper thermal range were up to 21-fold higher than the control. 
THERM