Extraordinarily large quantities of the pelagic brown macroalgae Sargassum spp., consisting of species S. fluitans and S. natans and hereafter referred to as sargassum, invaded the shores of the Caribbean and tropical West Africa in 2011 (Franks et al., 2012;Gower et al., 2013) and have been reoccurring since then (Johns et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2019). Drifting on the ocean surface, sargassum provides shelter and habitat for marine species (e.g., fish, shrimp, crab, and turtles). Once arriving in nearshore waters and washing ashore,