Great Salt Lake Institute

Director of the Great Salt Lake Institute, Dr. Bonnie Baxter, and Jaimi Butler edited and published Great Salt Lake Biology. This book includes many Westminster faculty and students as authors. This is the first book ever centered on Great Salt Lake biology. Authors explore the lake from the microbial diversity to the invertebrates and the birds who eat them. Unusual perspectives are included, including the impact of tar seeps on the lake biology and why the Great Salt Lake may help us search for life on Mars. The role of human perceptions and our effect on the biology of the lake is also considered.

Director of the Great Salt Lake Institute, Dr. Bonnie Baxter, and former coordinator, Jaimi Butler, published the children’s book The Great Great Salt Lake Monster Mystery, which follows children as they look for the fabled Great Salt Lake Monster while discovering brine shrimp, birds, salt, and much more.

Dr. Bonnie Baxter published The Great Salt Lake Food Chains: Fragility and Resiliency, which 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, the book illuminates how salinity and desiccation can affect each level of a complex ecosystem.