Peter L. Hurd

Infobox Scientist
name = Peter L. Hurd
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residence = Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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field = biology, psychology
work_institutions = University of Texas, University of Alberta
alma_mater = Carleton University, Simon Fraser University, Stockholm University
known_for = finger length and digit ratio, social behaviour esp. in conflict

Peter L. Hurd is an academic specialising in biology. He is currently an Associate Professor aligned to both the Department of Psychology's Biocognition Unit, and the University's Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Alberta. His research primarily focuses on the study of the evolution of aggressive behaviour, including investigation of aggression, communication and other social behaviour which takes place between animals with conflicting interests. Major tools for this research are mathematical modeling (principally game theory and genetic algorithms).He is also interested in how the process of sexual differentiation produces individual differences in social behaviour.

Hurd has made significant contributions to his field and has been recognised in the international media (including publications and television). Hurd conducted a study on digit ratios suggesting a positive correlation in males between aggressive tendency and the ratio of the lengths of the ring finger to his index finger. The most significant of these appear in the BBC, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4314209.stm Article on The BBC website] (Retrieved June 2007)] the "New York Times", [ Nicholas Bakalar, "What else His Ring Finger Says" the New York Times, D6 (2005)] "Discover Magazine", [ [http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/fingering-answers/ Discover magazine Article ] ] "Scientific American Mind", [ [http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=000AB7EF-6075-128A-9DD683414B7F0000 Scientific American Mind article] ] "National Geographic" [ [http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/mediasummaries.cfm?id=8285 Summary of National Geographic Article] ] and Jay Leno. [ [http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/newtrail/nav03.cfm?nav03=46926&nav02=46925&nav01=44986 Research Overview with Reference to Jay Leno] ]

Research

Evolution of animal signalling

Some of Hurd's most cited papers deal with the evolution of mating displays, specifically the idea that sexually selected traits have evolved to exploit previously existing biases in the sensory, or recognition, systems of their receivers, rather than being handicapped displays [Hurd PL, Wachtmeister C-A & Enquist M, 1995. Darwin's principle of antithesis revisited: a role for perceptual biases in the evolution of intraspecific signals. "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London" B259: 201-205.] [Ryan MR, Rand W, Hurd PL, Phelps SM & Rand AS, 2003. Generalization in response to allopatric mate recognition signals. "American Naturalist" 161: 380-394.] Hurd has argued against the handicap principle view of animal communication, demonstrating the evolutionary stability of conventional (non-handicap) threat displays using game theoretical models. [Hurd PL, 1997. Is signalling of fighting ability costlier for weaker individuals? "Journal of Theoretical Biology" 184: 83-88.] [Hurd PL & Enquist M. 1998. Conventional signalling in aggressive interactions: the importance of temporal structure. "Journal of Theoretical Biology" 192: 197-211.] [Enquist M, Ghirlanda S, and Hurd, PL. 1998. Discrete conventional signalling of continuously varying resource value. "Animal Behaviour" 56: 749--753.] Adding empirical support to this theoretical work, Hurd has also argued that threat displays in birds, [Hurd, PL; Enquist, M. 2001. Threat display in birds. "Canadian Journal of Zoology" 79: 931-942.] and headbob displays in the lizard "Anolis carolinensis" [Hurd PL, 2004. Conventional displays: evidence for socially mediated costs of threat displays in a lizard. "Aggressive Behavior" 30: 326-341.] are conventional signals, rather than handicaps. Hurd attributes the preponderance of handicap models in biology to the use of simple signalling games which are incapable of modelling conventional signalling. [Hurd PL & Enquist M. 2005. A strategic taxonomy of biological communication. "Animal Behaviour" 70: 1155-1170.]

Aggressiveness

Hurd has classified models of fighting behaviour into those driven by: 1) fighting ability (aka resource holding potential), 2) perceived value of winning, and 3) aggressiveness and argues that if variation in the last trait -aggressiveness- exists in a biologically meaningful way, it ought to be fixed for life at an early stage of development. [Hurd PL. 2006. Resource holding potential, subjective resource value, and game theoretical models of aggressiveness signalling. "Journal of Theoretical Biology" 241: 639-648.] Many studies on both human, and non-human, animals suggest that inter-individual variation in adult aggressiveness is largely organised by prenatal exposure to androgens. Digit ratio (2D:4D, the ratio of index to ring finger length) is a widely used as a proxy measure for prenatal testosterone exposure. Hurd demonstrated that men with more feminine typical-digit ratios showed lower aggressive tendency than males with more masculine-typical digit ratios. [Bailey AA & Hurd PL, 2005. Finger length ratio predicts physical aggression in men but not women. "Biological Psychology" 68: 215-222]

Digit ratio

Among his other research into digit ratio, Hurd has demonstrated that, while there is no difference in digit ratio between the sexes in most laboratory mice, that pups which gested next to brothers have higher digit ratios than those whose uterine neighbours were sisters, [Bailey AA, Wahlsten D & Hurd PL, 2005. Digit ratio (2D:4D) and behavioral differences between inbred mouse strains. "Genes, Brain & Behavior" 4: 318-323.] [Hurd PL, Bailey AA, Gongal PA, Yan RH, Greer JJ & Pagliardini S. 2007. Intrauterine position effects on anogenital distance and digit ratio in male and female mice. "Archives of Sexual Behavior" (in press).] and that the large differences in digit ratios between populations may be explained by Allen's rule and Bergmann's rule. [Hurd PL & van Anders SM. 2007. Latitude, digit ratios, and Allen's and Bergmann's rules: A comment on Loehlin, McFadden, Medland, and Martin (2006). "Archives of Sexual Behavior" 36: 139-141.]

Academic history

Strongly influenced as a youth by the anarcho-punk movement and such influences as Jonathan Kozol and A. S. Neill's Summerhill School, Hurd was an enthusiastic member of a student run free school group while unenthusiastically attending Colonel By Secondary School. [University of Alberta, Undergrad Psychology Association "Professor of the Month" interview, http://www.ualberta.ca/~upa/prof_hurd.htm] He then completed a BSc at Carleton University, Canada in 1990, followed by an MSc in 1993 from Simon Fraser University. He moved to Sweden to undertake a PhD at Stockholm University (Awarded in 1997) before committing to an initial postdoctoral fellowship with Mike Ryan at the University of Texas. Hurd then became a lecturer at the University of Texas in 2000 until 2001 when he moved to the University of Alberta, Canada as an Assistant Professor. Hurd was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007.

External links

* [http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/~phurd/ Pete Hurd homepage from the University of Alberta]

References