Roaring Creek (Pennsylvania) - Biology

Biology

Unlike many watersheds in Roaring Creek's vicinity, the Roaring Creek watershed is not affected significantly by acid mine drainage. The threatened plant species Dodecatheon radicatum lives in the lower Roaring Creek watershed. There is a significant hemlock forest with vernal pools in the Roaring Creek watershed. However the hemlock forests are threatened by Adelges tsugae and Fiorinia externa. Almost all of the watershed is a cold-water fishery of high quality. As of 2004, the black-nosed dace is the most common species of fish in the Roaring Creek watershed and brown trout is the most common game species. Golden shiners, American eels, fallfish, yellow bullheads, greenside darters and walleyes used to occur in the watershed but no longer do so. There are few riparian forests in the watershed. The canopy coverage in the watershed is lowest on Roaring Creek, where one site has 0% canopy coverage. The highest canopy coverage in the watershed is 95%, which occurs at Mill Creek and one other tributary of Roaring Creek.

All but one of the streams in the Roaring Creek watershed were not impaired for bethnic microinvertebrates. One tributary contains an abundance of snails. The algal biomass on streams in the watershed ranges from 0.02 micrograms of chlorophyll per square centimeter at one site on Lick Run to 3.81 micrograms of chlorophyll per square centimeter per square centimeter at one site on South Branch Roaring Creek.

All of the South Branch Roaring Creek watershed and the upper Roaring Creek watershed are a high-quality cold-water fishery. Many tributaries of Roaring Creek in its central and lower sections are coldwater fisheries, and the middle and lower parts of Roaring Creek are stocked with trout. Only one stream in the watershed is biologically impaired, and this is due to siltation.