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Since 2011, unusually large quantities of pelagic Sargassum fluitans and S. natans (sargasso) have been washing ashore along the coasts of some African countries and the Greater Caribbean, impacting ecosystems and economies. We estimated biomass and composition of sargasso arriving to a Mexican Caribbean coast from September 2016 until May 2020. In 2016, the beached masses comprised S. natans VIII and S. fluitans III. S. fluitans III was the predominant form throughout the study period, comprising on average >60 % of total wet biomass. The relative abundance of S. natans VIII decreased in time from 2016 to 2019 (41 to 3 %), although it became prevalent again in the first months of 2020. The third morphological form, S. natans I, was not registered until February 2018, and its relative abundance increased from 23 % in 2018 to 31 % in 2019. The initial composition of Sargassum species and …