Great Salt Lake Biology

Great Salt Lake is an enormous terminal lake in the western United States. It is a highly productive ecosystem, which has global significance for millions of migrating birds who rely on this critical feeding station on their journey through the American west. For the human population in the adjacent metropolitan area, this body of water provides a significant economic resource as industries, such as brine shrimp harvesting and mineral extraction, generate jobs and income for the state of Utah. In addition, the lake provides the local population with ecosystem services, especially the creation of mountain snowpack that generates water supply, and the prevention of dust that may impair air quality. As a result of climate change and water diversions for consumptive uses, terminal lakes are shrinking worldwide, and this edited volume is written in this urgent context. This is the first book ever centered on Great Salt Lake biology. Current and novel data presented here paint a comprehensive picture, building on our past understanding and adding complexity. Together, the authors explore this saline lake from the microbial diversity to the invertebrates and the birds who eat them, along a dynamic salinity gradient with unique geochemistry. Some unusual perspectives are included, including the impact of tar seeps on the lake biology and why Great Salt Lake may help us search for life on Mars. Also, we consider the role of human perceptions and our effect on the biology of the lake. The editors made an effort to involve a diversity of experts on the Great Salt Lake system, but also to include unheard voices such as scientists at state agencies or non-profit advocacy organizations. This book is a timely discussion of a terminal lake that is significant, unique, and threatened.

"Bonnie K. Baxter explains the trophic structure of the 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"--

Some forty-seven individuals, each specialists in some aspect of the lake, or its environs, have contributed to the articles in this compilation. The resulting volume contains seven sections on the history and recreation, geology and geophysics, chemistry, lake industries, hydrology and climatology, biology, and engineering of the Great Salt Lake. It is hoped that this volume on one of the great wonders of the world, the Great Salt Lake, will be informative and of value to many people. 400 pages + 2 plates

The data in this book are new or updated, and will serve also as Origin of Life and evolutionary studies. Endospores of bacteria have a long history of use as model organisms in astrobiology, including survival in extreme environments and interplanetary transfer of life. Numerous other bacteria as well as archaea, lichens, fungi, algae and tiny animals (tardigrades, or water bears) are now being investigated for their tolerance to extreme conditions in simulated or real space environments. Experimental results from exposure studies on the International Space Station and space probes for up to 1.5 years are presented and discussed. Suggestions for extaterrestrial energy sources are also indicated. Audience Researchers and graduate students in microbiology, biochemistry, molecular biology and astrobiology, as well as anyone interested in the search for extraterrestrial life and its technical preparations.

This book honors the career of Professor Elizabeth Gierlowski-Kordesch who was a pioneer and leader in the field of limnogeology since the 1980s. Her work was instrumental in guiding students and professionals in the field until her untimely death in 2016. This collection of chapters was written by her colleagues and students and recognize the important role that Professor Gierlowski-Kordesch had in advancing the field of limnogeology. The chapters show the breadth of her reach as these have been contributed from virtually every continent. This book will be a primary reference for scientists, professionals and graduate students who are interested in the latest advances in limnogeologic processes and basin descriptions in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and China. *Free supplementary material available online for chapters 3,11,12 and 13. Access by searching for the book on link.springer.com

The objectives of this volume are to present an up-to-date (literature survey up to 2001) account of the biology of Artemia focusing particularly upon the major advances in knowledge and understanding achieved in the last fifteen or so years and emphasising the operational and functional linkage between the biological phenomena described and the ability of this unusual animal to thrive in extreme environments. Artemia is a genus of anostracan crustaceans, popularly known as brine shrimps. These animals are inhabitants of saline environments which are too extreme for the many species which readily predate them if opportunity offers. They are, thus, effectively inhabitants of extreme (hypersaline) habitats, but at the same time are able to tolerate physiologically large changes in salinity, ionic composition, temperature and oxygen tension. Brine shrimp are gener ally thought of as tropical and subtropical, but are also found in regions where temperatures are very low for substantial periods such as Tibet, Siberia and the Atacama desert. They have, thus, great powers of adaptation and are of interest for this capacity alone. The earliest scientific reference to brine shrimp is in 1756, when Schlosser reported their existence in the saltpans of Lymington, England. These saltpans no longer exist and brine shrimp are not found in Britain today. Later, Linnaeus named the brine shrimp Cancer salinus and later still, Leach used the name Artemia salina. The strong effect which the salinity of the medium exerts on the morphological development of Artemia is now widely recognised.

This publication is composed of papers presented at an International Symposium on Athalassic (Inland) Salt Lakes, which was hosted by the University of Adelaide, South Australia, during a week in October 1979. The genesis of the Symposium was at the Copenhagen Congress of the International Association of Limnology (S.1. L.) where it was noted that a number of papers concerned with inland saline lakes were distributed throughout sessions in such a way as to make it difficult to attend all of them. A number of participants at the Congress felt that the ecology of salt lakes had greater homogeneity or cohesiveness than this sort of distribution would suggest, and it was decided that a symposium on salt lakes be held. The symposium was the first under the aegis of the S.l. L. to be held in Australia, and it was very well attended, with participants coming from many countries. The week long programme produced a number of lively and interesting sessions on all aspects of athalassic saline lakes. Participants stayed on after the Symposium for an expedition to Lake Eyre, in the nQrth of South Australia, and were given one of the best of all possible introductions to the Australian environment.