Question: How will polution affect species reproduction?

Claire Shooter answered on 20 Jun 2014:

Different kinds of pollution will affect different species in different ways. Some particularly nasty chemicals can cause birth defects if you’re exposed to them when you’re pregnant – a famous example of this was the Thalidomide scandal. Some pollutants could cause similar problems in animals.

Another possible problem is that pollution contributes to global warming: the warming of the planet may have serious impacts on many species, but in terms of reproduction it will be particularly bad for some lizard and bird species which let the temperature determine what gender their eggs turn out to be. If the temperature increases many species which use this form of sex determination would mostly produce male offspring, meaning they could die out very quickly.

Furthermore, some animals decide not to breed if they’re feeling sick or stressed. Living in a lake full of pollutants (or living near said lake and drinking from it) can make you sick or stressed, and this might seriously reduce the amount of young produced across many species