Genome-wide analyses reveal a strong association between LEPR gene variants and body fat reserves in ewes

Table 2 Least-square means for body reserve dynamics (± standard error) over successive physiological stages of ewes according to parity, litter size class and age of the ewe at first lambing

		% Obs.	BCS-M:Pa	BCS-Pa:L	BCS-Pa:W	BCS-L:Sa	BCS-W:Wp	BCS-W:M
N Obs.			2060	2153	2075	1978	1730	1204
Parity	1	47.3	0.06 (0.01) a	−0.35 (0.01) a	− 0.49 (0.01) a	− 0.10 (0.01) a	0.09 (0.01) a	0.21 (0.01) a
	2	38.9	0.19 (0.01) b	−0.22 (0.01) b	− 0.31 (0.01) b	− 0.08 (0.01) a	0.12 (0.01) b	0.17 (0.02) ab
	3	13.8	0.22 (0.02) b	−0.25 (0.02) b	− 0.32 (0.02) b	− 0.04 (0.02) b	0.08 (0.02) ab	0.12 (0.04) b
	Sign.		***	***	***	**	NS	**
Litter size class	0	13.3	0.12 (0.02) a	−0.18 (0.03) a	0.07 (0.03) a	0.09 (0.03) a	−0.02 (0.03) a	− 0.12 (0.06) a
	1	20.5	0.17 (0.02) ab	−0.17 (0.02) a	− 0.38 (0.02) b	− 0.10 (0.01) bd	0.12 (0.02) bc	0.17 (0.02) b
	2	24.3	0.15 (0.02) ab	− 0.33 (0.02) b	−0.45 (0.02) c	− 0.07 (0.01) b	0.10 (0.02) b	0.23 (0.02) c
	3	24.6	0.16 (0.02) ab	−0.30 (0.01) b	− 0.54 (0.01) d	− 0.16 (0.01) c	0.12 (0.01) bc	0.27 (0.02) cd
	4	17.3	0.18 (0.02) b	−0.37 (0.02) c	− 0.57 (0.02) d	− 0.13 (0.01) cd	0.14 (0.02) c	0.29 (0.02) d
	Sign.		NS	***	***	***	***	***
Age at first lambing	1	47.5	0.08 (0.01) a	−0.23 (0.01) a	− 0.36 (0.01)	− 0.08 (0.01)	0.04 (0.01) a	0.12 (0.02) a
	2	52.5	0.23 (0.01) b	−0.30 (0.01) b	−0.38 (0.01)	− 0.07 (0.01)	0.15 (0.01) b	0.22 (0.02) b
	Sign.		***	***	NS	NS	***	***
Year	Sign.		***	***	***	***	***	***
Parity*Litter size class	Sign.		NS	*	***	*	NS	NS
Age at first lambing*Litter size class	Sign.		NS	NS	***	NS	NS	NS

The significance probabilities were also reported for the year of measurement and first-order interactions
BCS Body Condition Score, N Obs number of records for each trait, % Obs percentage of observations for each class of a given factor, M:Pa Mating to Early pregnancy, Pa:L Early pregnancy to Lambing, Pa:W Early pregnancy to Weaning, L:Sa Lambing to Early suckling, W:Wp Weaning to Post-weaning, W:M Weaning to Mating. Sign., the significance probabilities for each fixed effect of mixed models are provided as: *** P-value < 0.001, ** P-value < 0.01, * P-value < 0.05; NS, not significant. The lower case letters (a, b, c, d) indicate significant differences in the trait between classes of each factor (i.e., values not sharing a common letter are significantly different as determined by a t-test at p < 0.05)