Table 3.

Seasonal changes of ratios and proportions of fatty acid groups in brown bears.

Tissues	Variables	Means ± SE		Winter – summer differences (%FA)
		Summer	Winter	Lsmeans ± SE	p-values
WAT
	MUFA/PUFA	6.11 ± 1.30	13.75 ± 3.47	7.86 ± 2.62	0.044
	MUFA/SFA	1.09 ± 0.13	1.55 ± 0.13	0.52 ± 0.14	0.044
	PUFA/SFA	0.20 ± 0.04	0.14 ± 0.04	-0.06 ± 0.05	0.295
	USFA/SFA	1.29 ± 0.12	1.69 ± 0.13	0.39 ± 0.20	0.182
	SFA	44.08 ± 0.02	37.49 ± 0.02	-6.51 ± 3.31	0.208
	Omega-3 [%PUFA]	18.38 ± 5.31	29.63 ± 4.42	11.76 ± 3.29	0.033
Muscle
	MUFA/PUFA	4.66 ± 1.22	14.76 ± 3.76	10.75 ± 4.50	0.045
	MUFA/SFA	0.67 ± 0.10	1.39 ± 0.13	0.63 ± 0.19	0.009
	PUFA/SFA	0.22 ± 0.06	0.20 ± 0.08	-0.02 ± 0.10	0.815
	USFA/SFA	0.88 ± 0.06	1.59 ± 0.19	0.66 ± 0.24	0.022
	SFA	53.39 ± 0.02	39.71 ± 0.02	-13.67 ± 2.95	<0.001
	Omega-3 [%PUFA]	15.37 ± 2.39	11.09 ± 7.21	-3.39 ± 8.49	0.699
Plasma
	MUFA/PUFA	0.97 ± 0.08	1.13 ± 0.12	0.16 ± 0.11	0.201
	MUFA/SFA	1.06 ± 0.08	0.72 ± 0.05	-0.33 ± 0.08	0.002
	PUFA/SFA	1.12 ± 0.07	0.69 ± 0.07	-0.44 ± 0.12	0.006
	USFA/SFA	2.18 ± 0.11	1.41 ± 0.09	-0.77 ± 0.18	0.002
	SFA	31.80 ± 0.01	41.82 ± 0.01	10.02 ± 2.34	0.002
	Omega-3 [%PUFA]	19.08 ± 1.85	12.90 ± 1.31	-6.18 ± 2.63	0.043

Arithmetic means (“Means”) and standard errors (“SE”) of response variables from white adipose tissue (“WAT”), muscle tissue (“Muscle”), and blood plasma (“Plasma”) of bears during the summer active period (“Summer”) and in winter hibernation (“Winter”). Response variables are ratios between different fatty acid (“FA”) groups: between monounsaturated fatty acid (“MUFA”) and polyunsaturated fatty acid (“PUFA”), between MUFA and saturated fatty acid (“SFA”), between PUFA and SFA, between unsaturated fatty acid (“USFA”) and SFA (among total fatty acids), as well as proportions of SFA and omega-3 FA (among total PUFA). Differences of least square means (“Lsmeans”) between seasons and p-values result from linear-mixed effects models (LMM). Sample sizes used in the LMM are presented in Table 1. Significant p-values are highlighted in bold.