Face of the LIB: Jeanne Agrippine Yetchom Fondjo

What drives you as a researcher? Why do you dedicate your life to nature?

When I was a child, I spent my holidays in the village. My grandfather was one of the best-known breeders of poultry, goats and sheep there. When I came home in the evening, each goat went into its own stable. Then I asked myself: How is that possible? How are they organised? How do they live? That's how I became interested in nature. I have dedicated my life to nature because nature is the essence of life and therefore deserves a special interest. I also realised that there are very few women working in this field in my home country, which is an absurdity. Knowledge and the preservation of nature is everyone's business, so women should be more involved in research.

How did you get into biology?

I would say it's my love of nature. It's also the curiosity to understand certain phenomena in nature, such as niche separation in animals. I've always been interested in understanding what causes certain animals to favour one environment over another. I want to understand why some animals are everywhere and others are hard to find.

What aspect of your daily working life is your highlight?

I would say the realisation and exchange of new ideas, both with colleagues at the LIB and with people from different parts of the world, from different social backgrounds and cultures.

What do you focus on in your academic work? What is the focus of your scholarship?

During my PhD, I focused more on morphological aspects. But because of the so-called "cryptic species", which are morphologically similar, it is very difficult to differentiate species using this method alone. Considering the cryptic diversity within several grasshopper groups, I follow an integrative approach at the LIB, combining both morphology and genetic analyses. This allows me to contribute to a better understanding of the systematics of locusts from Cameroon's humid forest, to better understand this biodiversity hotspot and to prioritise conservation actions. In my fellowship at the LIB, I am investigating the biodiversity and species delimitation of grasshoppers from Cameroon using an integrative taxonomic approach consisting of intensive field sampling, museum studies, classical morphological work and genetic analyses using classical barcoding and multigene techniques.

What significance does nature have for you personally?

Nature is the key to life on earth. If nobody takes care of it, we run the risk of it disappearing and with it all organisms. For me, the forest is one of the most impressive environments in nature. Because in the tropics, where I come from, there is an impressive diversity of species, especially of invertebrate fauna. It is one of the essential components for the functioning of forest ecosystems.

Crabs, fish, butterflies: Which animal fascinates you?

I have long been interested in breeding fruit flies and caterpillars, but with the aim of building up my insect collection. I am most fascinated by grasshoppers.

How do you explain the term biodiversity, especially in relation to your home country?

The term biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth at all levels, from genes to ecosystems, including plants, animals, bacteria and fungi. Cameroon is a hotspot for plant and animal biodiversity. However, they are still under-researched and deserve special attention, especially in view of global changes and the loss of forest areas.

What do you see as the greatest challenge in the field of environmental protection?

In my opinion, global change and the extinction of species due to the increasing loss of natural ecosystems are the greatest challenges for environmental protection.

Dr Jeanne Agrippine Yetchom Fondjo specialises in taxonomy, biodiversity conservation and evolutionary biology and is one of the current experts on Orthoptera in Cameroon. Since 2014, she has been working on the ecology, taxonomy and conservation of grasshoppers from Cameroon, her home country. In 2020, she completed her PhD at the University of Douala (Cameroon) on the ecology and taxonomy of Acridomorpha from the evergreen coastal forest zones of Cameroon. She received the OWSD PhD scholarship (Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World) in 2016 and took up a Sandwitch Scholarship Programme at the College of Life Science, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an (China) in 2018. Yetchom Fondjo also received a scholarship from the Mohamed Bin Zayed Conservation Fund (MBZ) in 2021. In October 2021, she received the Georg Forster Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.