Lucky escape for this bunch

   A setion of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which scientists have warned could  be killed by global warming within decades, has regenerated itself in record time, a scientist said on Thursday. But Laurence McCook, head of research for the authority that preserves the World heritage listed reef, said the giant organism remained at serious threat of climate change and labelled the partial regeneration a "lucky escape".The badly damaged stretch of coral at Keppel Island, at the reef's southern end, became strangled by seaweed after it began bleaching in 2006 due to elevated sea temperatures and acidity, the results of global warming.Bleaching occurs when the plant-like organisms that make up coral die and leave behind he white limestone skeleton of the reef.Bleached coral usually takes up to 10 years to regrow by a process of "reseeding", when larvae from a distant reef is carried by currents to populated the damaged area.But in an unusual combination of circumstances, McCook said the Keppel reef managed "asexual regrowth" from surviving tissue fragments and had returned to abudance in just 12 months."This is very unusual because it was a single species of seaweed and it is a species that diesback in winter", McCook told AFP."Then some of the coral had actually maintained enough survining tissue that they were actually able to grow much faster than we would normally expect".But he urged caution about the finding, describing it is an unsual and rare combination of the perfect conditions."If the reefs had been heavility polluted, if the area had been overfished, if tourism wasn't being well managed, all of those things could lead to the reef failing to recover", he said.While the overall health of the Great Barrier Reef was "relatively good on a global scale",McCook said it was under very serious threat from climate change and other human impacts.The reef, which is treasures as the world's largest living organism, stretches for 345,000sq.km off Australia's northeast cost. Coral growth has slowed markedly on the reef since 1990, believed to be caused by warmer seas and higher acidity.

Business line, 24th April 2009