Researchers using spiders to better understand Great Salt Lake pollution

SALT LAKE CITY — If you’re like most people, you might choose to stay away from spots like this. But maybe not, if you’re a scientist.

“I like spiders now because they help me answer my research questions in a really unique way,” Doctor Rebecka Brasso, an assistant professor of urban ecology in Weber State University’s Department of Zoology, said.

Brasso, along with several assistants, has collected hundreds of spiders, along with many more brine flies, over the past six years to get a better handle on one bad pollutant. Their research is all focused on two areas around Antelope Island.

“Mercury at high concentrations is a potent neurotoxin,” Brasso told KSL TV. “But even really low concentrations of mercury can cause things like immune system dysfunction, reproductive impairment.”

These effects are bad for the ecosystem, from brine shrimp that tend to struggle in low water years with high salinity, to migratory birds, which are the main focus of the study.

But Brasso wanted another way to look at the food chain.

“So I had to pivot and make a decision, and make a choice about, okay, who else is eating brine flies in a large number?” Brasso said.

There are a lot of these spiders to work with, which makes them easier to collect than a bunch of dead birds. Brasso said they’re also apex predators, meaning they’re far enough down that food chain.

So far, she said mercury levels in the spiders are higher in high-water years, and lower during major drought years. But it’s still hard to say whether that’s directly tied to the water, or a possible change in diet as the brine flies and the shores get farther away.

The Great Salt Lake is a really important ecosystem, both ecologically in terms of the animals that live there, but also economically.