Black Sea Bass Centropristis striata Year Class Strength and Spatial Extent from Two Long-Term Surveys off the Southeast U.S. Atlantic Coast

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic is of scientific relevance and the methods applied to determine the changes that marine fish subpopulations may undergo with climate change are appropriate. The manuscript is well written and clear. There are a few minor observations that are worth checking.

Authors state in lines 59 to 61 that the Red Snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) population and geographic extent have both expanded in the SEUSA. Authors provide references 15 and 16 for this statement, but these articles do not mention anything about red snapper. Reference 15: Skoko et al. (2022) address nursery habitat in the Adriatic. Reference 16: Able et al (1995) addresses early life history of Black Seabass. Please, check references.

Check the reference to Zimney and Smart (2022) (lines 150 - 151), which does not appear in the References; perhaps it should be Spanik and Smart (2021), i.e. reference 23, cited on line 73.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Apparently my reference library was not acting appropriately and I didn't catch the error.  I have checked all of the references and believe that the error has been remedied. Thank you again for the review and catching this error.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See comments in attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

See attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript entitled "Black Sea Bass Centropristis striata year class strength and spatial extent from two long-term surveys off the Southeast 3 U.S. Atlantic coast" by Vecchio et al. provides a novel comparison of 2 different sampling techniques to estimate changes to black sea bass year class metrics along the southeast U.S. Atlantic coast. The article is well-written although some clarification of method timelines is needed and an improved description of some results. Most importantly, the reference numbers in the text do not align with the statements being made and the reference list is incomplete. See the attached PDF with embedded comments and suggestions for more details.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

please see attached

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf