While the idea of spending three months of co-op in Antarctica sounds isolating and lonely, it is, in fact, the opposite. I discovered this while on my co-op from December 2021 to March 2022 working with the French Polar Institute to improve long-term penguin observation systems. Every day is heightened by the close community of researchers and staff at the base, especially during the summer campaign. The base held 77 individuals at its busiest, compared to the current 35. The 77 inhabitants consisted of a group of 22 “winter-overers” — who prepared to spend the following year and thus Antarctic winter at the base to provide upkeep and continue the data collection of long-term projects, around 10 to 25 summer campaign scientists — who spent a shorter time at the base to conduct their research, and around 10 to 25 technicians — who maintained the functionality of the base. With all these people living here to further Antarctic research, we never lack social time. We eat every meal together, collaborate on research projects, and party together.
LIFE AT THE BASE
The “polar day” refers to the 24 hours of sunlight that lasts nearly all December. Because of the lack of night, the workday hours are long and strict. In order to profit as much as possible from this, work begins at 7 a.m. every day of the week, including weekends. At noon, everyone gathers at the Sejour, or the common dining and living building at the center of the base, for lunch. In this culture, lunch is the most important meal of the day and is skipped only under serious conditions. Every table is set with an appetizer, wine, and fresh bread — baked each morning by the patisserie chef in residence. After dessert, everyone migrates from the tables to the couches and lounge area, playing games like foosball, darts, and chess; conversing; or reading books from the library — carefully cultivated since the base’s opening in 1950. If the weather is good, people are quick to return to work, but if the weather is poor, the socializing can continue for nearly another hour after eating. The afternoon passes quickly, and everyone reconvenes for dinner at 7:15 p.m. A handful of the scientists continue their work after dinner in place of relaxing but can always be convinced to stick around on Saturday nights when there is a grand party with music, dancing, and the drink of the week invented by the chef (favorites include his specialty mulled wine and his crème brûlée cocktail).
If the weather is good, people are quick to return to work, but if the weather is poor, the socializing can continue for nearly another hour after eating.
There are several intriguing aspects of the base life that are essential to maintaining order. First is the “base service.” In a remote location like an Antarctic base, there is no room or resources to hire a custodian. In their place, everyone is responsible for keeping their own work building clean, and two or three people are assigned to base service every day. On your base service days, you do not work at your normal job. You instead become the kitchen assistant and custodian — cleaning the common buildings, dormitory floors, and bathrooms; helping the chef prepare the day’s food; dressing the tables; serving each course; clearing the tables; and cleaning dishes. Another surprising aspect is called the “manip vivre,” or “life exercise,” aptly named because it entails collecting the food for the week from separate large storage buildings. Each Saturday, everyone is called to the center of the base to form a long string of stationary people between the two buildings. Each item is then passed from person to person, creating an efficient line of traveling foodstuffs. Memorable moments regarding this exercise include the Horror of the Orange Juice, where we moved nearly 30 cases of orange juice into the kitchen only to realize it all expired in 2017. We then had to empty each liter bottle of putrid orange juice into the bathroom sinks. These and other details of the base life are vital in maintaining humility, community, and equality throughout the various positions and people on the base, as no person is exempt from the tasks. They create moments where the techs, scientists, and administration work together, thus dissolving any barriers between different professions.
These and other details of the base life are vital in maintaining humility, community, and equality throughout the various positions and people on the base, as no person is exempt from the tasks.
CO-OP AT THE BASE – ENGINEERING
For my role as a co-op student on the base, I have two jobs, apt for my academic combination of electrical engineering and marine biology. The first is engineering-focused and is a project called MicrObs. I have constructed four winter-proof camera structures consisting of the camera, a Jetson (similar to a Raspberry Pi), and power converters. The purpose of the cameras is to record penguins’ speeds as they travel across the sea ice. There are two species of penguins in this region: the emperor penguins and the Adelie penguins. Since penguins feed at sea and fast on land, there is a marked difference between the speed of the penguins leaving the colony and the speed of those returning that correlates to how full of food they are. The departing penguins race to the sea, desperate to begin feasting on krill and fish, but those returning take their time trundling over the ice, ensuring they do not waste too much energy, so they have plenty to give to their chicks. By averaging this difference, ocean health can be observed from year to year. For example, if the walking speed difference is much greater one year, the penguins were able to find a lot to eat, and the ecosystem is doing well. If the following year, the walking speed difference is much smaller, the penguins were not able to find as much food, concluding that the health of the whole ocean ecosystem is worse. The system I set up will be in place for at least the coming five years, providing enough data to acquire long-term observations of this nature.
While migration and colony switching does occur, most birds remain in the colony they were born in, increasing the individuality and therefore unique importance of each colony.
Another side of the engineering work requires placement and upkeep of antennas to map dispersion of penguins equipped with RFID (radio frequency identification) transponders. The base is built on an island just a couple hundred meters from the continent, with several other islands nearby. Every island and the coast of the continent is covered with Adelie penguin colonies. The colonies can be anywhere from 20 to 2,000 birds. While migration and colony switching does occur, most birds remain in the colony they were born in, increasing the individuality and therefore unique importance of each colony. Tracking the birds’ movements helps us discover the dispersion radius and frequency of penguin movement into other colonies. These antennas run off of Raspberry Pis and require power from solar panels. They often break because of the weather conditions and therefore require a fair amount of repair to ensure proper functionality.
CO-OP AT THE BASE – ECOPHYSIOLOGY IN ADELIE PENGUINS
The second job is field biology research of an Adelie penguin colony, focusing on one specific colony of about 250 birds. This colony has only two access points and at each one is a bridge with RFID readers. Each time a penguin comes in or goes out, it must go across one of the bridges and is then recorded for us to observe who is in or out of the colony. A large section of work is this system’s upkeep. This colony has been under observation for at least 10 years, and having data like this for an extended period of time is incredibly valuable in the ecological and biological fields. For the RFID readers to deliver data, each penguin who enters or exits must be pit tagged, or given a small RFID transponder. These are placed in adolescent chicks in their fat reserve area between the leg and the tail. This year, there were 255 new chicks in the colony. This meant that we had to capture each of them, take their biometric measurements, take their blood samples, and inject a transponder. The data collected from this exercise is also extremely important in keeping a complete profile of the colony and the life history of important individuals.
Another project I am a part of is comparing foraging behavior between the different reproductive stages of the penguins. The reproductive cycle of Adelie penguins is well-monitored and reliable. The adults form couples upon arrival back to land in mid-October when they also work on building a big nest of small rocks. They then begin incubating an egg from the beginning of November to the middle of December, with the male taking the first shift of around 15 days so that the female can go to sea and eat after going through the energy-greedy process of laying the egg. The female returns to exchange places with the male and take over egg duty. They exchange once more before the egg or eggs hatch, and the brooding process begins. During this brooding period, the adults swap places every 1 to 3 days to go out to sea and bring back food to regurgitate for their chicks. Once the chicks leave their nests, they begin forming huddles of chicks called a creche. This is a strategy to protect themselves from predatory birds that inhabit the region. With the arrival of this creching period, the adults begin to make shorter and shorter trips on land, no longer concerned about waiting for their mate to take over chick-duty. The trips to sea remain a consistent 24 hours, but the time spent on land decreases from a similarly consistent 24 hours to as short as 15 minutes, just enough time for their chicks to find them and eat. Once their chick is big enough, the adults will leave the colony and spend the whole winter at sea, not returning until October of the following year.
Running on the jagged snow and slippery ice required two weeks of practice before I did not consistently fall flat on my face.
To compare the foraging patterns of the adults across these periods, special loggers capable of recording GPS location, depth, and acceleration data were deployed during each period onto about 20 individuals. This meant each penguin would be captured four times, a deployment and recuperation for both the brooding stage and the creching stage. The process of capturing the penguin resembles that of a cartoon. The moment we are alerted of an exiting penguin of importance (POI), we grab the materials and race to the correct exit. Running on the jagged snow and slippery ice required two weeks of practice before I did not consistently fall flat on my face. With a large net and strategic herding, we eventually ensnare the penguin. We then take a set of biometric measurements (beak length/height and wing lengths), a feces swab, a blood sample, and some feathers. These samples are used to gather various information about the individual, from diet to sex and even stress levels. We then loop tape and zip-ties under the feathers and around the logger. While never an ideal system, the loggers were designed with aerodynamics in mind, and the tape comes off with minimal effort at recuperation. Once we have recuperated the logger, we can see all the data from the last 10 to 15 days. Data comparisons are fascinating, not only for different life stage information but also to see differences between the individuals in a couple. We will eventually analyze their behavior for different survival strategies.
All in all, this experience has been a remarkable one. Working in the Antarctic requires not only tolerance to the cold and the infernal smell of penguin excrement but also the flexibility to cope with a last-minute change of plans; the cooperation with the logistic and safety teams; and the patience to eat, sleep, and socialize with the same group of people you work with each day. The decreased access to resources like the internet and Digi-key Electronics ordering makes the engineering process more difficult. You are left to rely only on the knowledge of yourself, your peers, and the tools that you have already laying around. I am thrilled to return with an expanded view of what field engineering and biology can be like and the many opportunities to continue work like this in the future.
