(MISSOULA) – New research from a University of Montana student and his partners suggests that a common parasite associated with cats turns Yellowstone National Park wolves into risk takers, who when infected are much more likely to disperse across the landscape and become pack leaders.
Connor Meyer, a wildlife biology doctoral student in UM’s Ungulate Ecology Lab, and his team made the discovery by studying a single-celled organism called Toxoplasma gondii – often nicknamed the “mind-control parasite.”
Meyer and his fellow lead author, Yellowstone Park biologist Kira Cassidy, conducted a study of the prevalence of the parasite among park wolves in spring 2021. They discovered the parasite-positive wolf becomes 11 times more likely to disperse from its original pack and 46 times more likely to become a pack leader, and more than 27% of the wolves they looked at were infected.
