Science Explorer Back to mapMap
Discussion
Topic · Social Psychology

Primate Behavior and Ecology

Primate Behavior and Ecology is a research topic within Social Psychology. Science Explorer counts 29k research works in it since 1950. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the evolution of social behavior, intelligence, and cognition in primates. It covers topics such as altruism, empathy, social bonds, tool use, brain size, cooperation, and communication among various primate species.

  • Primates
  • Social Behavior
  • Evolution
  • Intelligence
  • Altruism
  • Cognition
  • Tool Use
  • Brain Size
  • Cooperation
  • Communication
Research works
29k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
2.9k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+2%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
34% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Primate Behavior and Ecology

Which countries lead Primate Behavior and Ecology research?

By volume, the United States and the United Kingdom publish the most (1.1k and 359 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1.1k works
  2. 2 United Kingdom 359 works
  3. 3 Indonesia 306 works
  4. 4 China 270 works
  5. 5 Germany 258 works
  6. 6 Brazil 245 works
  7. 7 France 217 works
  8. 8 Japan 182 works
  9. 9 Canada 135 works
  10. 10 India 130 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 34.2%United Kingdom: 11.2%Indonesia: 9.6%China: 8.4%6 others listed: 36.5%34%largest
United States1,092 · 34.2%United Kingdom359 · 11.2%Indonesia306 · 9.6%China270 · 8.4%6 others listed1,167 · 36.5%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Primate Behavior and Ecology research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most Primate Behavior and Ecology research, followed by Max Planck Society and Leibniz Association.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 100 works
  2. 2 Max Planck SocietyGermany 60 works
  3. 3 Leibniz AssociationGermany 45 works
  4. 4 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 41 works
  5. 5 IPB UniversityIndonesia 40 works
  6. 6 Kyoto UniversityJapan 36 works
  7. 7 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasArgentina 33 works
  8. 8 University of California, DavisUnited States 29 works
  9. 9 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 25 works
  10. 10 Duke UniversityUnited States 25 works

Who are the leading researchers in Primate Behavior and Ecology?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Primate Behavior and Ecology include Rob Knight, Simon Iain Hay and Jun Wang.

  1. 1 Rob Knight United States 468k citations
  2. 2 Simon Iain Hay United States 452k citations
  3. 3 Jun Wang China 340k citations
  4. 4 Karl John Friston United Kingdom 310k citations
  5. 5 Dan J. Stein South Africa 306k citations
  6. 6 Sudhir Kumar United States 295k citations
  7. 7 Richard A. Gibbs United States 292k citations
  8. 8 Richard K. Wilson United States 244k citations
  9. 9 Didier Raoult France 232k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Primate Behavior and Ecology?

The most cited paper in Primate Behavior and Ecology is "The Evolution of Cooperation" (Robert Axelrod, William D. O. Hamilton, 1981), with 20,368 citations. Next come "ape 5.0: an environment for modern phylogenetics and evolutionary analyses in R" (9,939) and "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?" (8,737).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 The Evolution of Cooperation Robert Axelrod, William D. O. Hamilton · Science 27 Mar 1981 20,368
2 ape 5.0: an environment for modern phylogenetics and evolutionary analyses in R Emmanuel Paradis, Klaus Peter Schliep · Bioinformatics Open access 14 Jul 2018 9,939
3 Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? David Premack, Guy Woodruff · Behavioral and Brain Sciences Open access Dec 1978 8,737
4 DeepLabCut: markerless pose estimation of user-defined body parts with deep learning Alexander Mathis, Pranav Mamidanna, Kevin M. Cury et al. · Nature Neuroscience Open access 10 Aug 2018 5,835
5 Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter, Josep Call et al. · Behavioral and Brain Sciences Oct 2005 4,912
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Primate Behavior and Ecology research done?

The largest centres of Primate Behavior and Ecology research in 2022-now are Paris (France), New York (United States), Beijing (China) and London (United Kingdom). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in St Andrews, Göttingen and Leipzig.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 ParisFrance 95 works
  2. 2 New YorkUnited States 75 works
  3. 3 BeijingChina 61 works
  4. 4 LondonUnited Kingdom 54 works
  5. 5 TokyoJapan 52 works
  6. 6 BogorIndonesia 51 works
  7. 7 São PauloBrazil 49 works
  8. 8 LeipzigGermany 46 works
  9. 9 GöttingenGermany 46 works
  10. 10 KyotoJapan 44 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. St AndrewsGB · 23.4 works24×
  2. GöttingenDE · 46.3 works22×
  3. LeipzigDE · 46.3 works16×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Primate Behavior and Ecology than the world average.

See Primate Behavior and Ecology on the map

Where is the best place to study Primate Behavior and Ecology?

Among universities, judged by research, University of St Andrews, Arizona State University and University of Zurich score highest, combining citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 20.25%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Arizona State Univer…University of St And…University of ZurichUniversity of Exeter
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of St AndrewsUnited Kingdom 78.325.4%27.3×23 -9.3%
2Arizona State UniversityUnited States 75.729.7%7.1×19 +18.3%
3University of ZurichSwitzerland 74.522.4%8.5×24 -9.7%
4University of ExeterUnited Kingdom 70.120.6%11.3×19 -4.2%
5University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 65.414.3%4.3×25 -10.2%
6Durham UniversityUnited Kingdom 65.020.8%9.3×14 +11.1%
7University of GöttingenGermany 62.219.6%13.4×19 -5.1%
8University of TübingenGermany 62.121.1%9.5×16 -1.0%
9University College LondonUnited Kingdom 59.216.8%2.1×14 +19.7%
10City University of New YorkUnited States 59.011.8%10.4×23 +11.0%

Universities only. The score blends citation excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Primate Behavior and Ecology, country by country

Is Primate Behavior and Ecology research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 2% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Primate Behavior and Ecology.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Primate Behavior and Ecology as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.015% in 2024.

still counting0.025%0.050%0.075%Primate Behavior and Ecology0.018% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Primate Behavior and Ecology over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Primate Behavior and Ecology9.8% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

Questions people ask

Who leads primate research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most Primate Behavior and Ecology research, followed by Max Planck Society and Leibniz Association. By volume, the United States and the United Kingdom publish the most (1.1k and 359 works in 2022-now).

All 1,273 questions in the Question Catalogue

Discussion

Ask a question or share a note about Primate Behavior and Ecology. Keep it to the research: no personal attacks, advertising or links. Any reader can report a post, which collapses it for everyone until it is opened.