Let’s Flow: Gorilla Conservation Genetics

Across Africa, gorilla populations are declining due to habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and disease impacts. Their increasingly critical conservation status underscores the urgency of building capacity to assess and monitor surviving gorilla populations.

Researchers in our Genetics Division were the first to perform genetic studies on wild populations of gorillas and to demonstrate the genetic distinctiveness of regional gorilla populations. We continue to build on this foundation by utilizing the extensive array of gorilla samples stored in the Frozen Zoo® to help us assign gorillas living in zoos today to their historical wild populations. 

An important aspect of this project involves sponsoring a master’s student from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, for a traineeship at the Beckman Center. As part of her work, fecal samples from mountain gorillas in the Virunga Vocanoes Region and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park are being used to extract DNA and characterize genetic variability in mountain gorilla populations. Studying genetic relationships and gene flow dynamics will help us better understand the genetic structure of wild gorilla populations, as well as how individual gorillas disperse across the landscape.

A high priority of this project is building capacity for mountain gorilla conservation in range nations.