32. COURTNEY-L. MATTSON
Information acquired: 2025
COURTNEY-L. MATTSON is an academic who published a paper in 2020 entitled Male preference for conspecific females depends on male size in the splendid darter, Etheostoma barr. COURTNEY-L. MATTSON published this work as part of a team: Mattson, Courtney L.. Here is a description of this work: Mat,,ng preferences vary among individuals in response to a number of factors, such as the age and phenotype of the choosing individual. However, studies addressing variation in mating preferences generally focus on female preferences and usually are limited to choice within a species. Variation in preferences likely also exists at the species boundary, affecting an individual's propensity to mate with heterospecific individuals. In darters (Percidae: Etheostoma), male mating preferences are thought to prevent interbreeding between species, with male preferences for conspecifics sometimes as strong as, or stronger than, females'. In the current study, we tested whether male size and coloration predicts preference for conspecific females in Etheostoma barrenense. Previous studies have shown that males of this species strongly prefer conspecific.