Metabolic and immunological responses of to dietary restriction and bacterial infection differ substantially between genotypes in a population.

To respond to changing environmental conditions, a population may either shift toward better-adapted genotypes or adapt on an individual level. The present work aimed to quantify the relevance of these two processes by comparing the responses of defined populations to different stressors. To do this, we infected two homogeneous populations (isofemale lines), which differ significantly in fitness, and a synthetic heterogeneous population with a specific pathogen and/or exposed them to food restriction.