11 Evidence for selective disadvantages of large body size remains scarce in general. Previous 12 phenomenological studies of the yellow dung fly Scathophaga stercoraria have demonstrated 13 strong positive sexual and fecundity selection on male and female size. Nevertheless, the body 14 size of flies from a Swiss study population has declined by almost 10% from 1993 to 2009. 15 Given substanti...

Chagas disease (CD) or American trypanosomiasis is a complex zoonosis produced by the infection with the intracellular protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. Although the disease was first described in 1909 by the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas, this disease affects human beings since antiquity as it was demonstrated by paleoparasitology studies which proved the presence of DNA in mummies dat...

The immune system is costly to maintain and use [1], and because organisms are resource limited, the allocation of resources to immune function should trade-off against other fitness components [1,2]. While flexible resource allocation indicative of trade-offs is evident in several taxa, and correlational and phenotypic evidence suggests immune investment often trades-off against reproduction [...