Wolf Personalities Can Change Ecosystems: Study

According to the study, some wolves were much better at ambushing and killing beavers, and in turn, altered more wetlands than other wolves.

The study found that some wolves killed 229 per cent more beavers than other pack members and spent 263 per cent more time ambushing beavers than other pack members. 

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Did you know the personalities of wolves can alter ecosystems? New research, led by scientists from the University of Minnesota, has shown that. 

The research was conducted as part of the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is a project focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, Minnesota. The study was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Earlier, work conducted as part of the project had shown that wolves can alter the creation of wetlands by killing weavers. Some wolves were much better at ambushing and killing beavers, and in turn, altered more wetlands than other wolves. According to the researchers, individual personalities could be responsible for this pattern.

Differences In Wolf Personalities Result In Differences In Predation

In a statement released by University of Minnesota, Tom Gable, a co-author on the paper, said most dog owners are convinced their dogs have personalities, and that the researchers suspected wolves have personalities as well. This difference can be seen in differences in predation and hunting behaviour, he explained.

Joseph Bump, the lead author on the paper, said a successful ambushing personality requires that wolves wait at ponds or along beaver feeding trails. He explained that certain individual wolves waited more often and much longer than other wolves, even from the same pack. 

The researchers assessed the role of personality using data from eight pairs of wolves across six packs from 2019 to 2020, in order to figure out how wolf personalities might be connected to wetland creation. According to the study, the project team compared the number of times  wolves from the same pack, which lived in the same or similar habitats and conditions, attempted to ambush beavers and the number of times the wolves were successful at killing beavers. 

As a result, the researchers were able to control many of the variables that might influence hunting behaviour, such as the number of beavers in a wolf's territory, genetics and environmental conditions. 

Important Findings Of The Study

According to the study, the project team found there was significant variation in the amount of time pack members spent ambushing beavers and in the number of beavers killed by pack members. 

Also, it was found that some wolves killed 229 per cent more beavers than other pack members and spent 263 per cent more time ambushing beavers than other pack members. 

According to the study, this large variation in hunting behaviour between wolves in the same pack is evidence for personality-driven differences in wolf prediction.

Gable said wolves with stronger beaver-killing personalities appear to be disproportionately responsible, relative to the world population as a whole, for altering wetland creation and the associated ecological effects.

Do Other Animals Have Personalities?

The researchers believe that it is unlikely that wolves are alone in this capacity. It is possible that other wildlife also have personality differences that have different ecosystem impacts.

For instance, some cougars appear to have beaver-killing personalities and some American badgers are especially good at preying upon prairie dogs, which are ecosystem engineers in grasslands, the statement said.

Every time predators kill species that are ecosystem engineers, the predator personalities are likely to impact ecosystems more substantially, according to the authors.

Bump posed a question whether wolves that hunt beavers beget wolf packs with more beaver-hunting wolves. He said this is where the research becomes more interesting.

Since wolf personalities can be seen in nature, it is possible that wolf cultures exist. This is because personalities are a necessary precursor for cultural formation in animals.