Cavanagh et al. Genetics Selection Evolution 2010, 42:36 http://www.gsejournal.org/content/42/1/36 Additional file 3: Summary statistics of traits used in this study. Summary statistics of traits used in this in this study within the two cohorts Additional file 4: Phenotypic correlation between the carcass traits. Phenotypic correlation between carcass lean (CL), total lean (TL), eye muscle area (EMA), carcass fat (CF), total fat (TF), internal fat (IF), subcutaneous fat depth (SFD), carcass bone (B), total bone (TB), percent lean in carcass (PL), percent fat in carcass (PF), percent bone in carcass (PB); r > 0.2 corresponds to P < 0.05, and r > 0.3 corresponds to P < 0.01 with n = 160 Additional file 5: QTL for body weight and carcass traits using QTL Express. QTL for body weight and carcass traits using QTL Express; *chromosome-wide P < 0.05; **chromosome-wide P < 0.01; ***experiment-wide P < 0.05; ****experiment-wide P < 0.01; variance or QTL heritability (Heritab) as a proportion of the phenotypic variance accounted for by the QTL [variance explained by the QTL effect = 1-(MS of full model/MS of reduced model)] Acknowledgements The authors are particularly gratefully to Mrs Marilyn Jones and Mrs Gina Attard for their assistance in the genome scan, Mr Dave Palmer, Mr Joe Davis, Ms Renee Deever and the many casual staff who have contributed to the rearing of the lambs, the husbandry of the sheep, and the collation of data. Dr Mary Lam is thanked for her support in the first part of the analysis and the establishment of the database. The research was approved by the University of Sydney Animal Ethics Committee. The study was in part funded with an ARC-Linkage Grant. The resource flock and part of the sheep dairy was established with contributions from Mr Tom and Phillip Grant from Awassi Australia. The animals were scanned at The University of New England, the authors thank the staff of the facility and the visiting students for the analysis of the images for the first cohort in 1999. Author details 1ReproGen - Animal Bioscience Group, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, 425 Werombi Road, Camden NSW 2570, Australia. 2Food Futures National Research Flagship, CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia. Authors’ contributions CRC analysed the CT scans of the second cohort and ran the QTL analyses, was responsible for the data assembly, phenotypic analysis, contributed to genotyping and preparing the manuscript. EJ ran the final models and QTL analyses, participated in the manuscript preparation. MH calculated the QTL scores and designed the online data source. 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