Money from defense company will help study Great Salt Lake ecosystem

Eared grebes swim in the Great Salt Lake near Antelope Island on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

Anyone who has walked along the shores of the Great Salt Lake during the summer months is probably acquainted with the brine fly. 

They’re hard to miss — according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, brine fly populations around the lake have been in the billions during peak years, swarming in what sometimes looks like small, black clouds. The flies are an integral part of the lake’s ecosystem, a key source of food for the nearly 10 million migratory birds that stop by each year. 

But as water levels decline, the lake’s salinity levels become more concentrated, in turn impacting brine fly and brine shrimp populations. That’s essentially what researchers at Westminster University in Salt Lake City are gearing up to research after securing new funding. 

Last week, the university announced a $50,000 year-long grant from Northrop Grumman, one of the world’s largest aerospace and military defense companies, with a campus in Roy, Utah. 

The grant will allow Westminster’s Great Salt Lake Institute to expand its ongoing research into the brine fly, the insect’s impact on the lake’s ecosystem and how populations react to changes in lake salinity. 

According to the nonprofit Friends of the Great Salt Lake, a healthy salinity range for the Great Salt Lake’s south arm is between 13% and 15%. In 2022, as lake levels hit a historic low, salinity levels in the south arm hit 19%, nearing the tipping point of what brine flies can handle.  

The flies help sustain a number species of migratory birds that stop at the lake, with species of phalaropes, a shorebird, often congregating in areas with large populations of brine fly adults and larvae, according to the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative. 

“This funding will allow us to test our hypothesis that brine fly populations will be reduced at high salinity and may rebound when the lake level rises and salinity lowers,” said Georgie Corkery, the principal investigator on the grant and a coordinator for the Westminster’s Great Salt Lake Institute.

Now, the grant from Northrop Grumman will support the institute’s brine fly monitoring, where Westminster students will work alongside faculty and staff. Researchers will also collaborate with the National Audubon Society and Sageland Collaborative.