Many thanks for the observations, guys! One parallel that I can draw involves birds. Prairie chickens and sharptailed grouse set up dancing grounds (leks) in the spring. Males each have a defined territory, about like a male bluegill having his own spawning depression. Apparently, the most central male chicken/grouse does most of the breeding. The most dominant males are in the center. Females appear, hang around the fringes, but obviously don�t need to be there very long to breed. Thus, the males are highly visible and the females are only occasionally seen. The difference, of course, is that the females leave to lay their eggs alone, compared to the male bluegills guarding the eggs. I don�t know if anyone has ever worked out the hierarchy of bluegill dominance and spawning. However, they obviously have a lot of behaviors that we don�t know very well, as evidenced by the relatively recent knowledge of the small size at maturity for the �cuckold� males.
