Polyploidy in the intestine is essential for biological fitness. (A and B) Quantification of body volume (A), and body volume excluding intestine (B) in control and CDK-2^gut(−) worms. Each dot represents one worm. Volumes were estimated from length and cross-sectional area from images as in Fig. 1 H. (C) Developmental progression rate of tag-control, CDK-2^gut(−) F1, and CDK-2^gut(−) F2 animals. Stacked bar graphs show the average proportion of worms at the indicated developmental stage each day after release from overnight L1 arrest, grown at 15°C (N = 2 trials, n = 32–50 worms per genotype per trial). (D) Log₂ fold change in TxPG of either the top 3% most highly expressed transcripts or the six vitellogenin transcripts. Each dot represents one gene. (E) Representative widefield epifluorescence images of endogenously tagged VIT-2::GFP (viridis-inferno coloring) in F1 progeny of control and CDK-2^gut(−) siblings. (F) Quantification of average VIT-2::GFP intensity in cytoplasm of one- to four-cell-stage embryos as in E. Each dot represents one embryo. In A, B, D, and F, bars and error bars represent means and 95% confidence intervals; P values are from Mann–Whitney U tests. (G) Cumulative number of eggs laid per day of adulthood in control and CDK-2^gut(−) animals. Dotted lines show individual trails, solid lines represent the means, and error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. (H) Cartoon summarizing the cellular and organismal phenotypes of CDK-2^gut(−) worms. (I) Cartoon depicting a hypothesized biosynthetic tradeoff between supporting the cell through general biosynthesis and supporting progeny through yolk production.