The papers in this section shed new insights into the evolutionary divergence of gorilla populations and conservation status of wild populations of gorillas. In Gorilla Biology: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, the chapters on genetic studies recount findings that reflect queries coming from many perspectives. Medical science, anthropology, cognitive sciences, behavioral ecology, population genetics, and conservation biology all incorporate areas of interest for which genetic studies involving other species have provided new information. Of course, it is anticipated that insights into gorilla biology and conservation will occur as a result of genetic investigations involving this endangered species.

But how many species and subspecies do gorillas comprise, and how has the evolution of distinct lineages resulted in the morphological, ecological behavioral, and familial variety that is still in the process of being described?

Insofar as conservation efforts for gorillas and other endangered species are focused on maintaining viable populations in their habitats, the importance of understanding the distribution of heritable variation and the evolutionary patterns that result in its geographic distribution across landscapes suggests that genetic methods will continue to receive attention and yield useful insights. This would seem to be especially true as the technology for measuring genetic variation becomes more sophisticated and widely applied in many biological disciplines. Methods of investigation of genome expression now allow identification of genes whose activity and/or regulation serve as a source of adaptation for survival and reproduction.