Arnal A. auteur aut IRD Jacqueline C. auteur aut IRD Ujavari B. auteur aut IRD Leger L. auteur aut IRD Moreno C. auteur aut IRD Faugere D. auteur aut IRD Tasiemski A. auteur aut IRD Boidin-Wihlaz C. auteur aut IRD Missé Dorothée auteur aut IRD Renaud F. auteur aut IRD Montagne J. auteur aut IRD Casali A. auteur aut IRD Roche Benjamin auteur aut IRD Mery F. auteur aut IRD Thomas F. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf reformatted digital access Hosts often accelerate their reproductive effort in response to a parasitic infection, especially when their chances of future reproduction decrease with time from the onset of the infection. Because malignancies usually reduce survival, and hence potentially the fitness, it is expected that hosts with early cancer could have evolved to adjust their life-history traits to maximize their immediate reproductive effort. Despite the potential importance of these plastic responses, little attention has been devoted to explore how cancers influence animal reproduction. Here, we use an experimental setup, a colony of genetically modified flies Drosophila melanogaster which develop colorectal cancer in the anterior gut, to show the role of cancer in altering life-history traits. Specifically, we tested whether females adapt their reproductive strategy in response to harboring cancer. We found that flies with cancer reached the peak period of oviposition significantly earlier (i.e., 2 days) than healthy ones, while no difference in the length and extent of the fecundity peak was observed between the two groups of flies. Such compensatory responses to overcome the fitness-limiting effect of cancer could explain the persistence of inherited cancer-causing mutant alleles in the wild. specialized 052 050 020 7 1 272-276 2017 2045-7758 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010068994 10.1002/ece3.2571 2045-7758 [F B010068994] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010068994 https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-02/010068994.pdf IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2017-02-21 2023-07-11 fdi:010068994 fre