Great Salt Lake Student Research

Current Research

Topic	Faculty/Staff Mentor
Microbialite and Microbe Resiliency	Dr. Bonnie Baxter
Soil Halophile-Halophyte Interactions	Dr. David Parrot
Entombed Biota in Gypsum	Dr. Bonnie Baxter
Predators on Gunnison Island	Dr. Bonnie Baxter
Brine Fly Population Health	Dr. Bonnie Baxter

Past Research

• Mercury Loading and Methylation in the Great Salt Lake Watershed, Kate Amadio
• Molecular Identification of Cestode Parasites of the Brine Shrimp, Artemia, from Great Salt Lake, Utah, Nicole Baily
• Cartenoids and DNA Damage in a Great Salt Lake Halophilic Archaea, Lindsy Brickell
• Avian Populations in City Creek Canyon, Utah, John Buchannan
• The Importance of Arachnids in Biomagnification on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, Jim Goodman (faculty mentor–Dr. Frank Black)
• Estimating the Wintering Grounds of Migratory Shorebirds Using Stable Isotopes, Sarah Carver: (faculty mentor–Dr. Christy Clay, Westminster University)

PeliCAM Project

The Great Salt Lake PELI Project (Partnership for Education and Longitudinal Investigation of American White Pelicans) aims to understand the effects of water diversion and climate change on the migration patterns, breeding behavior, and survival rates of the pelicans on Gunnison Island. Great Salt Lake Institute undergraduate students work in partnership with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and their robust pelican research program.

The first phase of the PELI project was installing 15 PELIcams on Gunnison Island, the protected breeding grounds of the pelicans to monitor the pelican colonies, taking a picture every three minutes.

Hear more about the PELIcam on NPR's Science Friday