I've spent a good deal of time exploring the waters of Dallas' White rock creek these past few months, carefully identifying the native plants and animals I've seen. My findings are as follows:

Fauna populations vary. clearer waters with gravel or bedrock substrates, substantial overhead foliage, and frequent shallow riffles are home to freckled madtom, longear sunfish, blackstripe topminnow, and blacktail shiner. As current slows, water deepens, and riffles decrease in frequency, larger fish like largemouth bass and green sunfish become more common. Mosquito fish, spotted gar, and crayfish most common in lowland areas with heavy vegetation and higher water temperatures.

The most common non-algal flora in the creek are water willow, pennywort, frog's-bit, cattails and American pondweed, all of which are most common along stream margins or in slow-moving shallows with a deep muddy substrate.

Common reptiles include river cooters, red-eared sliders, common snapping turtles, and watersnakes.

Sounds like the beginnings of a very nice AC article....

Thanks. I am probably going to expand on this as I learn more. I'm doing my best to create an accurate portrait of aquatic ecosystems in the Dallas area (or Texan Biotic Province) prior to urbanization, since there really doesn't seem to be much literature on the subject. I'd like learn more about the native invertebrates and microbes, since they get the least attention. I'm limited, though, by my lack of skills in collecting smaller specimens, and have thus far been restricted to identifying through catch-and-release fishing and above-water observation. I'm thinking about making a water telescope to aid in Identification, and maybe even taking soil and water samples to learn about water chemistry and microscopic organisms. This is really just an exercise in scientific observation.

By the way, those blacktail shiners I mentioned actually turned out to be dusky darters. Whoops.