Face of the LIB: Nancy Mercado Salas

What drives you as a researcher? What does nature mean to you?

The first word that comes to mind is curiosity. I am interested in how diverse crustaceans are, but also what evolutionary processes they have gone through to have such an extraordinary variety of forms and ways of life and to be able to inhabit so many habitats.

For me, nature has always been a place where I found happiness and solace. As a child, we spent most of our free time outside as a family, exploring what animals lived in different parts of streams, climbing trees and taking long walks in the woods near our hometown. I soon became interested in the marine world, especially whale watching, and wanted to learn more about it. At the age of ten, I wanted to study biology, but I didn't see myself as a researcher back then. I saw the adventure.

How would you describe your research focus?

I study the diversity of crustaceans and their evolutionary history. I am interested in specific habitats that are "living laboratories" where we can study a variety of questions related to speciation, biogeography, population genetics and evolution.

For this reason, your research has an impact on society:

My research serves to gain fundamental insights into the diversity of crustaceans and how this diversity has changed over time and space. By analysing biodiversity, I can show how nature is affected by human activities. I can show how the knowledge we gain in our projects can be used to make better decisions on nature conservation or to create a better legal basis. Ultimately, it's about preventing or reducing the loss of biodiversity.

What aspect of your daily work is your highlight?

Every time I open the door to the collection, I feel privileged. The collection is very special and reflects the work and commitment of many people; it allows you to travel to different times and places. I also find it absolutely amazing to see species that I never thought I would be able to see. They are species that we know from the book, but which you suddenly have right in front of your eyes because of the collections or new expeditions. It's simply fascinating.

Crabs, fish, butterflies: Who has your personal affection and why?

I am extremely interested in copepods. Copepods are very important in the ecosystems in which they live. If you look at them from an evolutionary perspective, if you look at how they've invaded so many different habitats, how versatile they are - they're just incredible. They come in so many different forms, they have diverse lifestyles, some look like tiny balls, others like aliens. Copepods have undergone so many changes in the course of their evolution, and this is reflected in their diversity.

What would you like people to associate with the LIB in ten years' time?

I would like to see the LIB as a place where everyone has access to knowledge, where people can learn and inform themselves. It should also be a forum where people can raise awareness of biodiversity in the world.

In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge in environmental protection?

Climate change and habitat loss; we have seen changes in recent years and we are still far from having good legislation that allows us to protect the different ecosystems of the planet. Coming from a developing country, I think that social injustice also plays a big role in environmental protection. For example, I have seen huge areas of tropical forests in Mexico being taken away from people to be used for palm oil plantations; or mangrove areas being burnt to clear them for the construction of huge hotels on the Caribbean coast, which is a change in land use. As a society, we have a lot of information, but I don't think we are fully aware of the efforts we need to make to preserve diversity on Earth. We still have a lot of work to do.

What advice do you have for young biologists starting their careers?

Don't give up! You have to believe in your passion and follow it, ask as many questions as possible and take all the opportunities that come your way. I think the new generations need to learn to be patient again. Our society is used to delivering results immediately. In science, however, this is far from the reality. It usually takes time to achieve results. We also have to deal with failures and start from scratch to reach our goal. I say: consider failures as experience. Be patient and work hard, it will be worth it in the end. I think as biologists we are very lucky because we get to visit places and observe many animals that few people have seen before. We also get to meet people from different backgrounds and cultures.

Nancy Mercado Salas has been the curator of the LIB's crustacean collection since 1 August 2021. She was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in 1984. She studied general biology at the University of Aguascalientes. Here she began to study small crustaceans that live in fresh waters in arid areas of Mexico. She later moved to the south of Mexico (Chetumal) to do her master's and doctorate at the research institute El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR). During her master's and doctoral studies, she not only deepened her passion for the diversity of crustaceans, but also for natural history collections, which she got to know during short stays in Europe, the USA and Mexico. After completing her doctorate, she moved to Germany in 2014 as a postdoc at Senckenberg am Meer (DZMB), where she worked for six years on projects to describe crustacean diversity and their colonisation processes in micro-waters. She later worked on analysing the diversity of deep-sea crustaceans living in areas endangered by deep-sea mining, such as the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone. In 2020, she took up the position of Curator of the Crustacea Collection at the Centre for Natural History (CeNak) at the University of Hamburg.