Johanna Painer-Gigler

• PhD Biomed., DVM
• Medical Professional at University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a prevalent disease among felids; yet its origin is still poorly understood, and the disease often remains asymptomatic for years, underscoring the need for early diagnosis. This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic value of urinalysis in accurately staging CKD, particularly as routine health checks in large fel...

The effect of hibernation on cognitive capacities of individuals is not fully understood, as studies provide conflicting results. Most studies focus on behavioural observations without taking the physiological state of individuals to account. To mechanistically understand the effect of hibernation on the brain, physiological parameters need to be i...

Background and Aims Felids are obligatory hyper-carnivorous mammals, representing the utmost manifestation of a carnivorous dietary adaptation. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) could be characterized as an epidemic amongst domestic and captive wild felids, affecting up to 87%. However, its aetiology remains yet unknown. The aim of the study was to asse...

Asian colobine anaesthetic combinations are sparsely reported in the literature with limited information on their efficacy and safety. This study presents comprehensive data of an anaesthetic protocol using ketamine, medetomidine and midazolam (KMM) induction and isoflurane maintenance in captive langurs undergoing routine health examinations at th...

Bear bile entered the Chinese pharmacopeia 3000 years ago. Bile was collected by killing wild bears and harvesting their gallbladder. Asian traditional medicine still uses bear bile to treat various ailments, despite the availability of herbal and synthetic alternatives (ursodeoxycholic acid). In the late 70s, farming of Asian bears and bile collec...

Wild animal immobilization often requires high doses of α2-adrenoceptor agonists. Despite their desired sedative and analgetic effects, well-recognized cardiovascular side effects, such as hypertension and bradycardia, remain a major concern. We compared two medetomidine doses on intra-arterial blood pressure and heart rate in 13 captive, female re...

Two female adult formerly bile-farmed Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus), diagnosed with chronic calculous cholecystitis, underwent open cholecystectomy. The bears were anesthetized with 3 mg/kg tiletamine/zolazepam combined with 0.035 mg/kg medetomidine and 0.05 mg/kg butorphanol IM and maintained with isoflurane on 2.22 +/- 0.70 % and 2.05 +/...

Typically, large ungulates show a single seasonal peak of heart rate, a proxy of energy expenditure, in early summer. Different to other large ungulates, wild boar females had peak heart rates early in the year (at ~ April, 1), which likely indicates high costs of reproduction. This peak was followed by a trough over summer and a secondary summit i...

Background: The potent sedative medetomidine is a commonly used adjunct for the immobilisation of non-domestic mammals. However, its use is associated with pronounced cardiovascular side effects, such as bradycardia, vasoconstriction and decreased cardiac output. We investigated the effects of the peripherally-acting alpha-2-adrenoceptor antagonis...

The sum total of life course exposures creates an exposome that has a significant impact on age-related health. Understanding the interplay between exposome factors and the (epi) genome, offers pertinent insights into the ageing process and its relationship with the accumulation of allostatic load. We propose to exploit this to develop a biomimetic...

Growth rates importantly determine developmental time and are, therefore, a key variable of a species' life history. A widely used method to reconstruct growth rates and to estimate age at death in extant and particularly in fossil vertebrates is the analysis of bone tissue apposition rates. Lines of arrested growth (LAGs) are of special interest h...

Background: Opioid-induced respiratory compromise remains a significant challenge in etorphine-immobilised wildlife. Serotonergic agonists offer a potential avenue for preventing or treating opioid-induced respiratory compromise. We therefore aimed to determine whether the selective 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 4 (5-HT4) agonist, BIMU-8, reverses...

Differential levels of n-6 and n-3 essential polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are incorporated into the hibernator’s diet in the fall season preceding prolonged, multi-days bouts of torpor, known as hibernation. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) transcriptional activators bind lipids and regulate genes involved in fatty acid tran...

Experimental studies suggest involvement of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) in the aetiology of cardiometabolic diseases and chronic kidney disease (CKD), in part via metabolism of ingested food. Using a comparative biomimetic approach, we have investigated circulating levels of the gut metabolites betaine, choline, and TMAO in human CKD, across anim...

In China and Southeast Asia, bears are kept in cages and farmed for their bile for traditional medicine. An estimated 17,000 Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) are living on farms. In Vietnam, the most commonly found pathology in them is cholecystitis, as a result of unsterile cholecystocentesis. Twenty-eight Asiatic black bears have been rescu...

The underdeveloped opportunity to use the broad awareness of the diversity of animal life and comparative physiology (i.e. biomimetics) as nature´s own roadmap to provide novel insights and solutions from burden of life style diseases has recently been discussed (1‐5). Since human health, environmental changes and animal welfare are closely related...

Understanding reproductive physiology of a species is important to assess their potential to respond to environmental variation and perturbation of their social system during the mating or pre-mating seasons. We report 175 parturition dates from wild Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Scandinavia. Most lynx birth dates were highly synchronised around a m...

The fatty acid composition of a pre-hibernation diet can influence the depth and duration of metabolic suppression achieved by hibernators. More specifically, a diet high in n−6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) relative to n−3 PUFAs is essential to maximize torpor expression. However, few studies have investigated how diets with different n−6/n−...

Objective To determine the effect of intravenous vatinoxan administration on bradycardia, hypertension and level of anaesthesia induced by medetomidine-tiletamine-zolazepam in red deer (Cervus elaphus). Study design and animals A total of 10 healthy red deer were enrolled in a randomized, controlled, experimental, crossover study. Methods Deer we...

Corpora lutea (CL) are transient endocrine glands supporting pregnancy by progesterone production. They develop at the site of ovulation from the remaining follicle, are highly metabolically active and undergo distinct, transformative processes during their lifetime. In contrast to other species, CL of lynxes do not regress at the end of cycle, but...

Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) are kept under cage conditions in several Asian countries for the bear bile industry. Cholecystitis is one of the most commonly found pathology in the bile farmed bears. In Vietnam, cholecystitis is due to unsterile and illegally performed cholecystocentesis. Eighteen Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus) wer...

There are over 8 million species in this world that live in widely varying environments, from hot thermal fissures to cold arctic settings. These species have evolved over millions of years and vary markedly in how they have adapted to their environments. In the last decades, studies of how species have succeeded in surviving in different environme...

Muscle nonshivering thermogenesis (NST) was recently suggested to play an important role in thermoregulation of species lacking brown adipose tissue (BAT). The mechanism, which is independent of muscle contractions, produces heat based on the activity of an ATPase pump in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SERCA1a) and is controlled by the protein sarcoli...

Wildlife management, conservation interventions and wildlife research programs often involve capture, manipulation and transport of wild animals. Widespread empirical evidence across various vertebrate taxa shows that handling wildlife generally induces a severe stress response resulting in increased stress levels. The inability of individuals to a...

Supplemenary Material

Biologging has become a major part in ecological and ecophysiological research and huge progress has been made with respect to size and accuracy of logging devices. However, when working with larger animals, things become complicated quite fast with questions arising like where to implant the logger, especially when core body temperature has to be...

Biologging has become a major part in ecological and ecophysiological research and huge progress has been made with respect to size and accuracy of logging devices. However, when working with larger animals, things become complicated quite fast with questions arising like where to implant the logger, especially when core body temperature has to be...

While small mammals and neonates are able to maintain an optimal body temperature (Tb) independent of ambient conditions by producing heat via nonshivering thermogenesis (NST) in the brown adipose tissue (BAT), larger mammals and other mammals lacking BAT were long believed to rely primarily on shivering and behavioural adaptations. However, recent...

Many of the >2 million animal species that inhabit Earth have developed survival mechanisms that aid in the prevention of obesity, kidney disease, starvation, dehydration and vascular ageing; however, some animals remain susceptible to these complications. Domestic and captive wild felids, for example, show susceptibility to chronic kidney disease...

In urban areas with a high level of human disturbance, wildlife has to adjust its behavior to deal with the so called “landscape of fear.” This can be studied in risk perception during movement in relation to specific habitat types, whereby individuals trade-off between foraging and disturbance. Due to its high behavioral plasticity and increasing...

Most mammals rely upon scent for intraspecific communication. As most bear species have large home ranges and are non-territorial, scent deposit while walking could be an effective way to communicate with conspecifics. Here, we investigate the existence of pedal glands in brown bears and their role in chemical communication from a histological, bio...

In contrast to the species studied, corpora lutea (CL) of Iberian and Eurasian lynx physiologically persist in the ovary for more than two years and continue to secrete progesterone. Such persistent CL (perCL) transition into the next cycle and are present in the ovary together with the freshly formed CL (frCL) of a new ovulation. To date, the mech...

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a well-studied felid species, but astonishingly, there are no peer-reviewed published blood chemical and haematological values to date. Within this study, 38 blood samples of healthy lynx females were analysed. The results were within the published ranges of the three other lynx species and the domestic cat. An exte...

The corpus luteum (CL) is a transient gland formed in the ovary after ovulation and is the major source of progesterone. In the Iberian and Eurasian lynx, CL physiologically persist after parturition and retain their capacity to produce progesterone, thus suppressing the ovarian activity. This unique reproductive characteristic has a big impact on...

European lynx species demonstrate an atypical ovarian cycle compared to other felids. The physiological persistence of corpora lutea (CLs), reflected in constantly elevated progesterone (P4) concentrations in serum, is thought to ensure a seasonal monooestrus. Moreover, the coexis-tence of CLs from a recent ovulation (freshCLs) and persistent CLs f...

Seasonal variation in reproduction is common in mammals as an adaptation to annual changes in the habitat. In lynx, male reproduction activity is of special interest because female lynxes are monoestric with an unusual narrow (about 1 month) breeding season. In Eurasian lynx, mating occurs between January and April depending on the latitude. To cha...

A review of lynxes’ reproductive biology and comparison between the reproductive cycles of the domestic cat and lynxes is presented. Three of the four lynx species (the bobcat excluded) express quite similar reproductive pattern (age at sexual maturity, estrus and pregnancy length, litter size). Similarly to the domestic cat, the bobcat is polyestr...

Felids generally follow a poly-estrous reproductive strategy. Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) display a different pattern of reproductive cyclicity where physiologically persistent corpora lutea (CLs) induce a mono-estrous condition which results in highly seasonal reproduction. The present study was based around a sono-morphological and endocrine study...

Two Iberian lynxes from the Iberian lynx conservation breeding program were gonadecto-mised on d7 post-mating for medical reasons. On each ovary fresh corpora lutea (CL) from a recent ovulation and persistent CL from previous years were found. During 2011’s hunting season in Scandinavia (February), persistent CL were collected from five Eurasian ly...

Contents Assisted reproduction technologies are essential for propagating endangered wild felids. Artificial insemination ( AI ) has been reported in several wild feline species, but pregnancy rates are low, partially owing to failures of current hormonal stimulation protocols. Therefore, this study describes the application of reliable methods to...

Contents The corpus luteum ( CL ) is a transient hormone gland on the ovary that produces progesterone ( P 4) for the maintenance of pregnancy. It develops from residual follicular granulosa and theca cells after ovulation. Very little is known about the cellular and hormonal processes within CL s obtained from pregnant and pseudopregnant felids. T...

Lynx presents a unique sexual cycle with persistent corpora lutea (CLs) and elevated serum progesterone (P(4)) throughout parturition and lactation. In other mammals, CLs normally disintegrate after parturition, therefore the aim of our study was to characterise the annual life cycle of lynx CLs. Ovaries from Eurasian lynxes were obtained from the...

We compared anesthetic protocols with different doses of tiletamine–zolazepam (TZ) combined with medetomidine (M) for 288 yearling brown bear (Ursus arctos L., 1758) immobilizations with the objective of finding a combination of doses that would provide fast induction with a duration of anesthesia long enough to minimize the need for administering...

The Przewalski’s horse (Equus caballus przewalskii) became extinct in the wild during the 1960s. Based on a successful captive breeding program, Przewalski’s horses were reintroduced to the Great Gobi Part “B” strictly protected area (SPA) in SW Mongolia in the late 1990s. The Asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionus hemionus), Przewalski’s horse, and some...