Fifty percent maturity for males occurs between 12.6 and 13.0 in. Mating occurs in the fall and females release larvae once a year in the winter from December through March, peaking in January. No information is available concerning diseases in olive rockfish. Juvenile olives feed on crustaceans, juvenile fishes, polychaetes, octopi and squid. Adults are preyed upon by sharks, dolphins, and pinnipeds such as seals and sea lions.
Juveniles fall prey to other rockfishes, lingcod, cabezon, salmon, albacore, birds, and porpoise.
Though olive rockfish have been associated with surfperches and bocaccio, and are frequently observed among schooling blue rockfish, no information on competition among them was found. As with all rockfishes, the larval stage of olive rockfish is planktonic. In shallow waters, they are found throughout the water column in and around kelp beds, and are known to rest on the bottom as well. The movement patterns of olive rockfish may be limited by the presence or absence of kelp beds. It has been shown that the abundance of olive rockfish decreases as beds of Macrocystis are removed.