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Life‐history trade‐offs allow many animals to maintain reproductive fitness across a range of climatic conditions. When used by parasites and pathogens, these strategies may influence patterns of disease in changing climates. The chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is linked to global declines of amphibian populations. Short‐term growth in culture is maximal at 17°–25°C. This has been used in an argument that global warming, which increases the time that amphibians spend at these temperatures in cloud‐covered montane environments, has led to extinctions. Here we show that the amphibian chytrid responds to decreasing temperatures with trade‐offs that increase fecundity as maturation rate slows and increase infectivity as growth decreases. At 17°–25°C, infectious zoospores encyst (settle and develop a cell wall) and develop into the zoospore‐producing stage (zoosporangium) faster, while at 7 …