SAT Text Structure and Purpose Question

Benjamin Prud'homme and colleagues have explored how convergent evolution—a phenomenon that occurs when the same trait evolves independently in two reproductively separate lineages—can result from a genetic mechanism shared by both lineages. Meanwhile, Cynthia C. Steiner and colleagues have investigated how convergence occurs through different genetic mechanisms. However, the relative prevalence of convergence through shared and different genetic processes is still poorly understood. This motivated biologists Delbert A. Green II and Cassandra G. Extavour to evaluate both types of convergence in a single study for their 2012 paper. Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?