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a heat map showing a thick band from Africa, across the northern coast of South America and into the Gulf of Mexico

Photo

The Sargassum Belt

The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt in July 2018. Scientists used satellite imagery...

Sargassum forms dense clumps up to the size of a beach ball that slowly rotate as they drift.

Article

Too Much of a Good Thing—the Atlantic Sargassum Belt

There is a sea in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where floating rafts of seaweed...

June 2022

Screenshot from video with large kelp leaves floating in the ocean.

video

A Kelp's Slime

Kelp provide a home for microbes to grow on—they're the reason kelp are so slimy....

Wed, 07/03/2019 - 15:55

Trout cages in 30 feet of water.

Article

Aquaculture Comes Full Circle

Until recently we were farmers on land and hunter-gatherers at sea, but how we get...

September 2015

Kelps are large, brown algae that grow along coasts around the world, especially in cooler regions.

With Every Breath You Take, Thank the Ocean

When was the last time you thought about your breathing? Take a breath right now...

July 2017

Relatively slow moving, juvenile plane-head filefish Monacanthus hispidus (Monacanthidae) travel along with the algae. They pick off and eat small animals as they move around in the rotating sargassum ball. Adult filefish only grow to be about 11

Personal Perspectives

A World Adrift: Life in the Sargassum

The open ocean is surprisingly barren to the naked eye. Every now and again you...

May 2012

This shrimp is colored to fit in - probably why they are common members of the seaweed community.

slideshow

A World Adrift: Life in the Sargassum Slideshow

Smithsonian Marine Science Network Postdoctoral Fellow, Seabird McKeon, returns...

Fri, 05/18/2012 - 16:43

Seagrasses are flowering plants that can form dense underwater meadows and are an important shallow water habitat.

Personal Perspectives

How Coastal Seagrass Feeds the Deep

It is a well-known fact that for animals living in the deep sea, food can be...

February 2013

Sargassum forms dense clumps up to the size of a beach ball that slowly rotate as they drift.

Photo

Floating Sargassum Seaweed

Sargassum fluitans, a.k.a. “Gulfweed,” forms dense clumps up to the size of a...

This shrimp is colored to fit in - probably why they are common members of the seaweed community.

Photo

Shrimp hides in the sargassum

One of the most common inhabitants of the sargassum community, the shrimp Latreutes...

Relatively slow moving, juvenile plane-head filefish Monacanthus hispidus (Monacanthidae) travel along with the algae. They pick off and eat small animals as they move around in the rotating sargassum ball. Adult filefish only grow to be about 11

Photo

Juvenile plane-head filefish

Relatively slow moving, juvenile plane-head filefish Monacanthus...

Convict surgeonfish are the roaming sheep of the reef but, instead of noshing on grass, they feed on algae.

Photo

Surgeonfish: Indicators of a Healthy Reef

Convict surgeonfish (Acanthurus triostegus) are the roaming sheep of the reef but,...