The Great Salt Lake Food Chains

Fragility and Resiliency

By Bonnie K. Baxter

Bonnie K. Baxter explains the trophic structure of Great Salt Lake food chains and resulting impacts from recent years of a shrinking lake and corresponding increases in salinity. Moving from the foundational organisms to brine shrimp, flies, and ten million birds reliant on the lake, Baxter illuminates how salinity and desiccation can affect each level of a complex ecosystem. Presented in the context of current science, she explores the pressures of persistent water diversions and climate change and provides a cautionary tale of a lake on the brink of collapse. Baxter’s hopeful tone, sounding the lake ecosystem’s inherent resiliency, is a welcome voice in the climate conversation and a plea to help save a lake that can survive with a little help from its human neighbors.

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Bonnie K. Baxter is professor of biology and director of Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster University. She has authored dozens of scientific papers on the lake. She is co-editor of Great Salt Lake Biology: A Terminal Lake in a Time of Change and co-author of The Great Great Salt Lake Monster Mystery, a children’s book.