Extended spawning in brown trout (Salmo trutta) populations from the Southern Iberian Peninsula: the role of climate variability Larios-López, José E. Tierno De Figueroa, José Manuel Galiana-García, Miguel Cortázar, Javier Alonso González, Carlos Salmonids Reproduction Plasticity Mediterranean climate Rainfall Unpredictability Temperature The reproductive periods of brown trout (Salmo trutta) populations in 12 rivers in the Baetic Mountains in southern Spain were studied from 2008 to 2013. This area is an ecological and geographical limit for the distribution of this species in Europe. We found that the spawning period has been markedly extended in these fish. The mean spawning dates in the studied populations are consistent with the European trend at this latitude, but our data suggest that females from most of the populations that we studied are able to produce eggs from early October through late April or early May, yielding a reproductive period of between 150 and 170 days, the longest and most delayed brown trout reproduction periods that have been reported in the literature. We believe that such expanded spawning periods result primarily from the unpredictability of the Mediterranean climate, although it is possible that other factors may have contributed to the development of this reproductive behaviour. This hypothesis is discussed in the context of a comparison of our results with those found for other European S. trutta populations. 2015-06-24T11:21:49Z 2015-06-24T11:21:49Z 2015 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Larios-López, J.E.; et al. Extended spawning in brown trout (Salmo trutta) populations from the Southern Iberian Peninsula: the role of climate variability. Journal of Limnology, 74(2): (2015). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/36738] 1129-5767 1723-8633 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/36738 10.4081/jlimnol.2015.1089 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Istituto per lo studio delgi Ecosistemi (Italy)