Brendan J Barrett, Phd

I am an evolutionary behavioral ecologist and evolutionary anthropologist interested in how extragenetic inheritance systems such as culture and territorial inheritance are influenced by (and in turn influence) ecology, sociality, and life history. My research uses a combination of field observation and experimentation, hierarchical Bayesian statistical modelling, and game-theoretical and population modelling. My goal is to link analytical techniques more closely to the theoretical models we use to inform our predictions in behavioral ecology and cultural evolution. I am currently a group leader in the Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies at  the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior and University of Konstanz where I lead the Inheritance and Social Learning across Space (ISLaS) research group. I am also a visiting researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. You can take a look at a current-ish CV here.

Some of my ongoing research questions include:

1. What predicts individual variation in social learning strategies and how does individual behavior shape population-level cultural dynamics?

2. How does island ecology affect social behavior, innovation rates and affect cultural transmission and variation?

3. How and what do groups maintain terriitories and home ranges over long periods and does territorial inheritance contribute to fitness?

4. What social and ecological factors predict territorial bequeathal and dispersal?

5. How is social learning utilized by organisms across different life history stages?

6. How, what and why do animals socially learn about space use and movement?

I am a broad systems-level thinker and am keenly devoted to developing and communicating new methods-- particularly Bayesian statistical approaches for analyzing behavioral data and generalizable work flows for reliable data processing. As a consequence I often have forays into other "fields" or topics, that are all seemingly connected in my head-- i.e. human-wildlife coexistence, primate archaeology and the quantitative social sciences. 

I currently work with gracile capuchin monkeys in Panama and Costa Rica, have worked with dusky-footed woodrats in California, and work with collaborators on datasets related to birds, lions, and other primate species (including humans). I am not bound to any taxa and am primarily theoretically motivated.

When I am not doing science related things I am mostly parenting, riding bicycles on dirt, running, cooking or listening to avant-garde, dark, or extreme music.