Connoquenessing Creek Watershed Conservation Plan - Western ...

Connoquenessing Creek Watershed Conservation PlanChapter 4. Biological ResourcesCHAPTER 4. BIOLOGICAL RESOURCESEcosystems are groups of plants and animals that live and interact together. Not only are plants andanimals essential to healthy ecosystems, biological resources sustain and enhance our quality of life.Wood products, crops, and livestock offer economic income to the Connoquenessing region. Wild gameand fish species offer opportunities for hunting, fishing, and wildlife watching. Trees, wildflowers, birds,and butterflies enhance our outdoor experiences. Bees, bats, and other pollinators ensure sufficient cropyields and beautifully blooming gardens. Having a diversity of living creatures and communityinteractions is termed biodiversity. Even humans are a biological component of watersheds andecosystems. In this chapter, biological resources, habitats, and threats to those resources will be discussed.Natural SettingEcoregion CharacteristicsIn addition to being located in the Appalachian Plateausgeomorphic province (as described in chapters 1 and 2), thearea also is located in the Humid Temperate Domainecoregion. As defined by the World Wildlife Federation(2005), an ecoregion is an area of land or water that containsgeographic characteristics and species that interactecologically to enhance their longevity. Although bothprovince and ecoregion delineations consider the geology ofthe area, the difference is that an ecoregion also considersclimate, ecology, and the interactions between animal andplant species.Deshon woods is a designatedconservation area along Route 68between Butler and Evans CityEach ecoregion is subdivided into divisions and subregions. The project area is located within twosubregions of the Humid Temperate Domain ecoregion. The majority of the area lies within the SouthernUnglaciated Allegheny Plateau subregion covering the Allegheny, Beaver, and Butler counties’ portionsof the watershed. The remainder of the study area in Lawrence County is located within the WesternGlaciated Allegheny Plateau subregion (McNab & Avers, 1994).In general, the subregions within the watershed are characterized by mixed mesophytic (adapted tomoderately moist conditions) forest and Appalachian oak forest. Varying mixed forest types can be foundthroughout these subregions, including mixed oak forest, oak-hickory-chestnut forest, oak-pine forest,hemlock forest, beech forest, floodplain forest, swamp forest, beech-maple forest, northern hardwood,oak-hickory forest, maple-ash-oak swamp forest, wet beech forest, beech-sugar maple forest, and oakmapleforest (McNab & Avers, 1994).Common mammals that inhabit these ecoregions include the whitetail deer, red fox, gray fox,woodchuck, raccoon, opossum, gray squirrel, white-footed mouse, striped skunk, cottontail rabbit, foxsquirrel, eastern chipmunk, short-tailed shrew, and meadow jumping mouse. Less common mammalsinclude the hairy-tailed mole, porcupine, smoky shrew, masked shrew, and the rare eastern woodrat.Other mammals, such as the bison, elk, black bear, mountain lion, timber wolf, and bobcat, were onceabundant throughout the area. Many of these species have been extirpated—locally extinct throughout aportion of their range—as a result of over-harvest, human encroachment and influence on their habitat,and pollution. In the cases of black bears, mountain lions, and wolves, social fears lead to varying degreesof elimination of those species under the pretense of protecting children and humans from being attackedby vicious creatures. Today, small populations of black bears, beaver, and bobcats may still exist, and4-1