We also aim to identify the courtship signals that are necessary and sufficient to elicit a mating response for individuals of a given species—so called “species recognition” signals. How do individuals decide which members of the opposite sex are attractive? What are the boundaries of “acceptability” that define a species? Projects in the lab that address these questions include

• Preference for conspecifics in both males and females for both species with and without parental care.
• Spectral quantification of male nuptial color patterns within the colorful subgenus Etheostoma s.s.