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Species Du Jour: Sargassum Grass

Have you ever noticed the heaps of golden brown sea grass (sargassum) that pile up along the Indian River Lagoon shores after long periods of onshore winds? It is during this time of year when the easterly trade winds freshen, and the cooler northwesterly winds abate, that we find large rafts of sargassum grass, a critical pelagic (free-floating) habitat, breaking away from the Sea of Sargasso, migrating towards our shores and washing up on our beaches. An area of light currents and particularity clear blue water, the Sea of Sargasso is about two thousand miles long and 700 miles wide. It is located in the mid-north Atlantic Ocean; Bermuda more or less marks its western center-edge.   

Have you wondered about where big-game species like wahoo, dolphin, and billfish spend their earliest stages of life? These fish, along with baby loggerhead sea turtles and many other important marine species will often spend the majority of their early juvenile lives hiding in the clutters of sargassum grass, drifting in and out and along the edges of the Gulf Stream’s powerful loop current.

There are many different species of sargassum, a critical pelagic (free-floating) habitat, distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world. However, a significant portion of the sargassum grass we find in the western Atlantic originates in the Sea of Sargasso.    

So, when it comes to pelagic gamefish, there may not be a more important pelagic habitat floating in the sea than sargassum grass.

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