"Stata, like any other software package, has fixed criteria to convergence declaration. It's not foolproof. There will be always cases where convergence will be 'declared' and it shouldn't."
Brendan Barrett
@bjjbarrett.bsky.social
dad / evolutionary (behavioral) ecologist group leader at MPI-AB and STRI research associate social learning, cultural evolution, extragenetic inheritance, dispersal. field & stats & math. cyclist & runner / doom metal aficionado. he/him.
About 24% of U.S. employees stay in unwanted jobs just for health insurance, a report out Wednesday finds. Up significantly since 2021, the uptick in "job lock" is a concerning sign for the U.S. economy. n.pr/4gQIY5E
Staying in a job for the health insurance? About 1 in 4 Americans do, a survey says
About 24% of U.S. employees stay in unwanted jobs just for health insurance, a report out Wednesday finds. Up significantly since 2021, the uptick in "job lock" is a concerning sign for the U.S. economy.
n.pr
Our recent paper led by @oddjacobson.bsky.social recently covered by @mongabay.com
A 33-year study on Costa Rica’s white-faced capuchin monkeys reveals that extreme climate events force the primates to abandon their social norms. Severe droughts cause food scarcity, driving intense competition, territorial sensitivity and shifting group dynamics. Adam Litchkofski reports.
Manuscripts with women as corresponding authors are less frequently sent out for review at Science. The ones reviewed receive less favorable reviews by both male and female reviewers.
Editorial and peer review dynamics at elite general science journals | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪
reading @apvelilla.bsky.social @psmaldino.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social paper and realizing this is the kind of thing I say to my kids when they hurt each other. maybe i need new word choices. doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
In many fields, pilot studies are critical for methods & tool development & refinement, yet are often overlooked & rarely reported Any ecologists & evolutionary biologists with a special interest and experience in piloting in ecology & evolution: suggested reading, previous research, etc...?
We have an exciting new position in our group for a PhD on parrot innovation !!! The position will be part of our new @fwf-at.bsky.social Emerging Fields project with @barbaraklump.bsky.social , @mohara.bsky.social , @christophvoelter.bsky.social and Justus Piater. Apply & share!!
One reason I like Bayeisan stats is that you can model the importance of rare event's like this and why i find ways to fit Gamma, zero-augmented Gamma, and zero-augmented Beta distributions at all costs. "Rare events of great biological import likely live in the tails of probability distributions"
2026. A 2100‐km jaguar journey redefines mobility and large‐scale conservation priorities during large carnivore dispersal. esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
New research! 📚 We built the largest database to date of cephalopod species - octopuses, squids and cuttlefish - and their brains, habitats and behaviors 🐙🧠📈 What did we find?👇 Press release: www.lse.ac.uk/news/ecologi... Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
spitting fire in my soon to be neglected grant applications:
reading some economics papers and the footnotes are fire.
Congrats Zoë!
I’m beyond excited to share I’ve been awarded a Minerva Fast Track Fellowship by @maxplanck.de to start my research group “Culture and Social Behavior” at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social! Keep your eyes peeled for a PhD position advertisement coming later this year 🐒 www.ab.mpg.de/1442914/zoe-...
New paper "To select or not to select: predictively consistent priors instead of model selection" with Anna Elisabeth Riha, Leevi Lindgren, @davidkohns.bsky.social, @paulbuerkner.com arxiv.org/abs/2606.22850 Model selection is not a substitute for building good models in the first place 1/
excited about this one: using longitudinal movement data and dyadic models, we show that orangutan moms adjust their ranging patterns so their kids can play with age-mates independent of kinship, at personal costs. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
my group is looking for a HiWi (student assistant) to help transcribe narrative interviews for our project on Inuit health and well-being. Must be a student enrolled in a bachelor or master's program at a German University. Link here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
eva.mpg.de
1 week left to apply for scholarships ! If you are based at an institution in an ODA recipient country (e.g. Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico; full list: tinyurl.com/5dv7vvs8), you can get all expenses covered to attend the summer school in Lausanne for a week.
Applications now open for the UNIL Summer School on Modelling for Evolutionary Biology (31 Aug–5 Sep 2026, Lausanne)! For PhD & postdocs interested in formal approaches to evolutionary ecology (incl. social evo, life-history, species interactions). Scholarships available, Pls RP! shorturl.at/fo1GA
New paper out today in Nat Ecol Evol! On how within- and between-group competition jointly shape ranging in wild capuchins, and how the environment tips the balance. Thread below 🐒
Is bigger always better? For social animals, group size is a dilemma: big groups face more internal competition, yet hold an edge over smaller neighbors. 33 years of data on 12 wild capuchin groups reveals how these forces shape behavior. Out today in *Nat Eco & Evo*: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Post Peer-review pub out from my former PhD student @oddjacobson.bsky.social dissertation. Im proud of their integration of longitudinal demographic, behavioral, historical, remote sensing, climate & movement data under a causal inference framework using hierarchical social relations models & CTMM
Is bigger always better? For social animals, group size is a dilemma: big groups face more internal competition, yet hold an edge over smaller neighbors. 33 years of data on 12 wild capuchin groups reveals how these forces shape behavior. Out today in *Nat Eco & Evo*: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
There is a fully-funded PhD position at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to pursue dissertation research among the Mayangna of Nicaragua, expanding a longitudinal study of subsistence strategies and behavioral ecology. Please share the posting! www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
We are launching a global initiative on translocation & animal movement - to learn more about roles of memory, the environment and other drivers of space use, and about what works and what doesn't in conservation. But we want to do it collaboratively, so see Inès' post below! We need and want you!
🌍 Global Translocation Study – call for contributors 🐾 We’re compiling post-release movement data from translocated, reintroduced, relocated & rehabilitated vertebrates worldwide. Interested in taking part? Quick survey below 👇 tinyurl.com/global-trans... Feel free to pass it on to colleagues 😊
🎉🦜NEW PAPER ALERT 🦜🎉 Which social learning biases underly the acquisition of novel food in wild parrots ? We (@lucymaplin.bsky.social, @bjjbarrett.bsky.social, @sonjawild.bsky.social, @drjohnmartin.bsky.social) presented >700 cockies with a novel, artificial food (🧵1/6)
Adopting novel food is vital to colonize novel environments, but what is the role of social learning? Study of urban #cockatoos by @clevercockierp.bsky.social shows them to rapidly adopt novel food via #SocialLearning, with juveniles showing conformist preferences @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4uq6NVq
🚨Last week to apply for a 3 year postdoc with me and @dominikdeffner.bsky.social, embedded in theadaptivemind-excellencecluster.de Focus is on developing innovative experiments and computational models to understand social & cultural learning. Deadline is March 30th 👉 hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni...
Postdoc position -- Social Learning and Cultural Evolution
Postdoc position -- Social Learning and Cultural Evolution posted on March 2, 2026 We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual...
hmc-lab.com
🚀 Postdoc Alert! Are you passionate about social learning & cultural evolution? @dominikdeffner.bsky.social & I have a 3-year position with freedom to develop your research and work on cutting-edge multiplayer and immersive experiments. Apply by March 30! hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni... Pls share 🙏
To whom it may concern: I will be presenting at @bioanth.org in Denver and @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social annual meeting in Rabat so if you would like to meet up reach out
3-year Independent Post-doc in Animal Behavior based at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama! Three positions, each including salary & a research budget. Applications due April, 15th. DM if you are interesting in developing a project with us! stri.si.edu/academic-pro...
3 Year Postdoctoral Fellowships in Animal Behavior
stri.si.edu
Leipzig U and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) have an open faculty position (W2) in evolutionary population genetics! This position is tenured and comes with generous core funding. We are eager to welcome a new colleague! Deadline March 11. www.uni-leipzig.de/en/newsdetai...
Professorship in population genetics in the field of evolutionary anthropology and medicine (W2)
Faculties & Facilities
uni-leipzig.de
prior choice is the only thing that soothes my weary soul.
on that note, see: bsky.app/profile/oliv...
reminder of cryptogyny, the hiding of women's contributions to science, technology, engineering, and medicine: "although three men received the Nobel Prize for penicillin, women participated significantly in the team effort that brought the drug to medical usefulness." www.jstor.org/stable/jj.55...
Last preprint of the year from our group led by Meredith Carlson of UC Davis, showing white-faced capuchins exhibit material selectivity of hammerstone mass according to material properties www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
White-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus imitator) exhibit selectivity for stone tools
Over the last few decades, the developing field of primate archaeology has used archaeological methods to reconstruct primate behaviors, especially tool use. We expand the possibilities of primate arc...
biorxiv.org
now out, post peer review, led by @ehowaspi.bsky.social: empirically informed ABM suggesting that in orangutans dietary"know-what" requires social learning to develop
Our New Paper is out in Nature Human Behaviour: 🚨 Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials! 🦧 www.nature.com/articles/s41.... See 🧵