Brendan Barrett

Brendan Barrett is a Project Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz, leading the Inheritance and Social Learning across Space (ISLaS) research group. He also holds a visiting researcher position at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. His work spans evolutionary behavioral ecology, cultural evolution, and statistical modeling.

• Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
• University of Konstanz
• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Barrett explores extragenetic inheritance systems like culture and territorial inheritance, focusing on their interplay with ecology, sociality, and life history. His research integrates fieldwork with Bayesian statistics and game-theoretical models, addressing questions such as: How do individual behaviors shape cultural dynamics? How does island ecology influence adaptation and territorial inheritance? Current projects involve white-faced capuchin monkeys in Panama and Costa Rica, dusky-footed woodrats in California, and collaborations on birds, lions, and human datasets.

Barrett collaborates with researchers including Lucy Aplin, Richard McElreath, Meg Crofoot, and Susan Perry. His methodological work emphasizes hierarchical Bayesian modeling for social learning data, with code and simulations openly shared via GitHub.