No quantitative diet analysis has been conducted on the orangethroat darter in Tennessee. However, in other populations tested, the diet was found to mainly include midge and blackfly larvae, mayfly nymphs, isopods, amphipods, and caddisfly larvae. but the composition varied seasonally and with age. This species' habitat often includes slow to swift, shallow gravel riffles in cooler streams. Sometimes the orangethroat darter will inhabit rocky runs and pools, of headwaters, creeks, and small rivers, with sand, gravel, rubble, or bedrock substrates; spring runs or quiet backwaters in some areas. This species is most abundant in waters with a high alkalinity; it seems to avoid rivers with strong current. Eggs are laid in gravel in riffles. Young drift downstream into pools, sometimes move into smallmouth bass nests where they feed. This fish mostly competes with other darters or minnows due to its size restriction and predators may consist of larger species in the particular stream like trout or smallmouth bass. Edie Marsh mentioned in her study in Texas of the orange throat darter that offspring from larger eggs tended to be larger at hatching than those from smaller eggs although there was no effect of egg size on time to hatching. Marsh then continued to test these specimens under a starvation condition where she found offspring from larger eggs were larger at starvation and took longer to starve than those from smaller eggs.
