Experimental evolution demonstrates evolvability of preferential nutrient allocation to competing traits, in response to chronic malnutrition.

Investigating the evolutionary origins of disease vulnerability is an important aspect of evolutionary medicine that strongly complements our current understanding on proximate causes of disease. Life history trade-offs mediated through evolutionary changes in resource allocation strategies could be one possible explanation to why suboptimal traits that leave bodies vulnerable to disease exist. For example, Drosophila melanogaster populations experimentally evolved to tolerate chronic larval malnutrition succumb to intestinal infection despite eliciting a competent immune response, owing to the loss of their intestinal integrity. Here, I test if evolved changes in resource allocation underlies this trade-off, by assaying preferential allocation of dietary protein towards growth and tissue repair in the same populations. Using two phenotypic traits: regeneration of intestinal epithelium post-pathogenic infection and body weight, I show that in accordance to the dynamic energy budget theo...