Ethological analysis of a polar team in the French Antarctic station Dumont d'Urville as simulation of space teams for future interplanetary missions

This new ethological study focuses on the co-adaptation of the crew's spatial behavior to social isolation in a polar base thus simulating long-term living and working of a space team. The method consisted in drawing the subjects' position (n=13) on an observation map at the midday and evening meals at the Dumont d'Urville French station in Antarctica, daily during the summer campaigns and weekly during the winter-over of the TA46 mission. Quantitative data are presented in geocentric (positions), allocentric (distances) and egocentric (orientations) analyses with an emphasis on three adaptative periods (first 3 months, intermediary 2 months and last 3 months of isolation). Results show a large space occupancy during the first week after arrival and the last week before departure from the polar base, and a team-members' grouping during the winter-over. On the over-all time, the inter-individual distances increase. The social orientations are higher at the beginning than at the end of the mission. Discussion underlies the pertinent use of such ethological indicators collected from polar stations as predictors of well-being and optimal-working of the future orbital and planetary stations users.