Seawater carbonate chemistry and morphometrics and hatching success, survival and growth of black sea bass

We experimentally examined early life CO2-sensitivities of northern stock black sea bass (Centropristis striata), an ecologically and economically important fish that seasonally migrates from offshore overwintering grounds to coastal feeding and nursery areas. We produced embryos from wild spawners and reared them until 10 days post hatch (dph) at three contrasting pCO2 levels (~400, ~2200, ~3000 µatm), finding no statistical effects of pCO2 on hatching success (~25%) or survival to 10 dph (~11%). At the extreme pCO2 level, surviving larvae were 1.2× larger and grew 55% faster compared to control pCO2 conditions. This dataset contains morphometrics, hatching success, survival, and growth data from these experiments.