32. CYNTHIA O'ROURKE ♀
Information acquired: 2025
CYNTHIA O'ROURKE is an academic who published a paper in 2013 entitled Competition, Choice and Mating Success in the Darter Subgenus Catonotus. CYNTHIA O'ROURKE published this work as part of a team: O'Rourke, Cynthia. Here is a description of this work: Mate choice and competition for mates can strongly influence fitness. Selection to compete within a sex varies with the operational sex ratio (OSR), the ratio of fertilizable females to males, with the more abundant sex being more competitive. In animals, males often appear to be the more competitive sex, as indicated by conspicuous male-male aggression, solicitation of females, and/or secondary sexual ornaments, such as the bright male nuptial coloration of most species of the darter genus Etheostoma. Species with paternal care, however, have male nuptial coloration that is less conspicuous to the human eye. In some fishes and birds with substantial paternal care, females are the more competitive sex, and males are choosier. In the first chapter, I investigate whether this pattern holds in the paternal care darter E. nigripinne by offering males.