OGDEN — Anyone who has walked the shores of the Great Salt Lake has encountered them: Those creeping black clouds of billions of winged bugs swarming along the shore's edge.

Most would consider the masses of billions of brine flies a nuisance, but for one Weber State University junior, her newly found appreciation for the tiny flies has earned her international attention.

"Before, when I went to the Great Salt Lake, there was a whole lot of flies and I just didn't understand why they were there," Amanda Troung said. She admits that when she was little, she found them "annoying."

Utah's salty lake can be a very inhospitable environment for most creatures. "There's not a lot of organisms that live in the Great Salt Lake. It's such a unique environment," she said.

Troung said she was interested in getting into genetic research when her zoology professor, Jonathan Clark, suggested she study brine flies and how they can not only survive in a harsh, salty environment, but actually thrive. Three years of study later, Troung's research has earned her the honor of presenting her work at one of the largest biology conventions in the world.

Later this month, Troung will travel to Kyoto, Japan, to present her work before the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution. She is one of only 10 undergraduate students in the world given such an honor. When her professor nominated her, Troung said, she didn't think she had a chance of being selected, coming from a relatively small university.

Specifically, Troung is interested in what makes brine flies so hardy. Her theory is that a specific bacteria in their digestive systems allow them to survive. This bacteria is also found in 60 percent of most insects and other invertebrates.

Making several trips to the Great Salt Lake, armed with a net, Troung scoops up a fair number of flies. She then takes them back to the lab where she crushes the flies in a test tube and runs a DNA analysis to isolate what strains of bacteria live in their digestive system.

Clark said he nominated Troung because of her outstanding work. The Great Salt Lake is a convenient place to study "extreme environments."

"We don't understand a lot about those organisms that tolerate those environments," Clark said. NASA has also taken an interest in how certain life forms thrive in extreme dry, heat or chemical environments where few other life can.

"Brine flies are really remarkable in that they not only tolerate that environment, they actually thrive in it," he said. More interesting is that when brine flies are placed in a more moderate environment, they don't survive.

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The flies belong to a larger species of shore fly that can be found on the edges of ponds and lakes. Troung and Clark say the brine flies play a crucial role in keeping the lake's ecosystem in balance. According to the Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Program, brine-fly larvae can consume up to 120,000 tons of algae and organic material in a season. The flies also provide an important food source for shore birds.

Clark said without the flies, algae in the Great Salt Lake would overtake the ecosystem, depleting the lake of oxygen and killing off other lifeforms, such as the lake's famous brine shrimp.

Troung said she ultimately wants to attend medical school and become a research physician.

Email: gfattah@desnews.com

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