This story appears in the June 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.
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Life in the North Atlantic depends on this floating seaweed
Sargassum plants are a nuisance on some beaches, but they are a shelter and a feast for a complex and amazing variety of marine life.
A clump of sargassum weed the size of a soccer ball drifts near Bermuda in the slow swirl of the Sargasso Sea, part of the North Atlantic gyre. A weed mass this small may shelter thousands of organisms, from larval fish to seahorses.
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