Abstracts: Toxoplasma gondii infections are associated with costly boldness toward felids in a wild host

Toxoplasma gondii is hypothesized to manipulate the behavior of warm-blooded hosts to promote trophic transmission into the parasite’s definitive feline hosts.

A key prediction of this hypothesis is that T. gondii infections of non-feline hosts are associated with costly behavior toward T. gondii‘s definitive hosts; however, this effect has not been documented in any of the parasite’s diverse wild hosts during naturally occurring interactions with felines.

Here, three decades of field observations reveal that T. gondii-infected hyena cubs approach lions more closely than uninfected peers and have higher rates of lion mortality.

We discuss these results in light of 1) the possibility that hyena boldness represents an extended phenotype of the parasite, and 2) alternative scenarios in which T. gondii has not undergone selection to manipulate behavior in host hyenas.

Both cases remain plausible and have important ramifications for T. gondii‘s impacts on host behavior and fitness in the wild.

Eben Gering # 1 2Zachary M Laubach # 3 4 5 6Patty Sue D Weber 7Gisela Soboll Hussey 8Kenna D S Lehmann 1 9Tracy M Montgomery 1 9 10Julie W Turner 1 9 11Wei Perng 12Malit O Pioon 9Kay E Holekamp 1 9Thomas Getty 1

Nat Commun. 2021 Jun 22;12(1):3842. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24092-x.

1Michigan State University, Department of Integrative Biology and Program in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, East Lansing, MI, USA.

2Nova Southeastern University, Department of Biological Sciences, Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA.

3Michigan State University, Department of Integrative Biology and Program in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, East Lansing, MI, USA. zachary.laubach@colorado.edu.

4University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Boulder, CO, USA. zachary.laubach@colorado.edu.

5Mara Hyena Project, Narok County, Kenya. zachary.laubach@colorado.edu.

6Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA. zachary.laubach@colorado.edu.

7Michigan State University, Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, East Lansing, MI, USA.

8Michigan State University, Department of Pathobiology and Diagnostic Investigation, College of Veterinary Medicine, East Lansing, MI, USA.

9Mara Hyena Project, Narok County, Kenya.

10Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies, Konstanz, Germany.

11Memorial University of Newfoundland, Department of Biology, St. John’s, NL, Canada.

12LEAD Center & University of Colorado, School of Public Health, Aurora, CO, United States.

#Contributed equally.

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