Lastly, to evaluate how the different weighting factors could influence the results, we performed the weighted analysis using the weighting factor defined by the square root of number of pedigree x number of markers. As a result, we found that the resultant top ranked bins and P-values, generated by the two weighting factors, remain close to each other. Wilcoxon signed-rank test further showed no significant difference (P > 0.7) on the ranks of bins by the two different weighting factors for each trait we investigated. A comparison of the top five bins identified for each of the traits using both weighting approaches is shown in Table S1 in the Supplement.
