Global research, local action

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Scientists from the LIB cooperate with local researchers in Ecuador and Madagascar in order to understand and conserve biodiversity in the scope of projects to protect endangered species and train people on site, on student field trips to share knowledge and conduct research as a collaborative effort, and in a science centre that expands research capacities. Let’s have a look at three collaborations at the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots.

Something like a five-hour drive from Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, the Garden of Dreams is located on the edge of the Illinizas Valley in the Chocó region. The protected, low evergreen forest serves as a habitat for many different animals, one of which is the Ecuadorian spiny pocket mouse, which cannot be found outside of this region and that is critically endangered.
“Places like this quickly make it clear why Ecuador is one of the world’s most important hotspots of biodiversity,” says Dr David Salazar, biologist and director of the Ecuadorian-German Integrative Biodiversity Research Center (EGiB) in Quito.
The science centre of the EGiB has been in development since February 2025 to promote research and protection of Ecuador’s biodiversity. It receives funding from the German Federal Government. The LIB and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE), its Zoological Museum (QCAZ), and the CISeAL centre for health research join forces in this research base in Latin America. “We want to establish long-term partnerships between German and Ecuadorian scientists from various disciplines, as well as with partner institutions, to create an infrastructure that facilitates biodiversity research in Ecuador,” says Salazar. Two laboratories are in the process of being set up at the PUCE facilities at the moment. Amongst other things, researchers there are to have the opportunity to conduct DNA analyses or to examine collected samples morphologically. The EGiB already supports researchers in obtaining collection permits.

Unexplored biodiversity

Biologist Nadine Dupérré has been responsible for establishing the EGiB at the LIB as co-leader of the project from the beginning. Working on this with Prof Dr Bernhard Hausdorf, her LIB colleague and head of the Molluscs section, she says: “The Jardín de los Sueños is one of several threatened ecosystems. We paid it a visit on our first EGiB expedition.” Dupérré and Salazar took ten Ecuadorian and German researchers to the Chocó and Amazonas regions for two weeks in August 2025. In return, four Ecuadorian researchers are going to visit the LIB in Hamburg this summer for a scientific exchange.
Dupérré has conducted research on spiders and spider venom in Ecuador for two decades. Salazar is a native Ecuadorian closely familiar with the country and specialises in snakes and snake venom. “Considering biodiversity from various perspectives and thinking about research questions from multiple viewpoints was a very enriching experience,” says Salazar. The expedition’s team comprised experts in plants, frogs, crustaceans, snakes, spiders, and molluscs such as snails.
The EGiB strives to bring together researchers from different disciplines to analyse biodiversity change using various technologies. Another focus area is support for young researchers and providing a selection of courses for Ecuadorian students. Dupérré taught taxonomy and morphological working methods for ten days in 2025.
Only a small part of the organisms present in the biodiversity hotspot of Ecuador are known today. Dupérré comments: “We have gaps in our fundamental knowledge. We find so many species that were never described before. We know nothing about their distribution then. That’s why basic research is vital for us.”

Ecuador’s great biodiversity is under severe threat.

Echoes of colonial practice

There are many reasons for this. One is that Ecuador simply is extremely rich in biodiversity; another one, Salazar explains, is the blatant lack of public funding. “On top of this, local scientists have only been researching Ecuador’s biodiversity since about the 1970s. The area was firmly in the hands of foreigners before that, who collected specimens as colonists without sharing knowledge or materials with us.” Clear regulations were only introduced by the Nagoya Protocol, an international environmental agreement that entered into effect in 2014. Dupérré says: “Anyone who wants to collect specimens in Ecuador as a foreigner needs a permit and has to sign a cooperation agreement with a local institution now. The decision on use and disposal of the samples will be with the latter.”
Nevertheless, Salazar says, major issues with illegal trade, as well as with foreign scientists, abound.
“People continue to show up with no intention of sharing their knowledge or acting fairly and in an ethically and professionally sound manner. I’ve had some personal experience with this,” says Salazar. He sees the EGiB as fostering a respectful and open-minded atmosphere. “We are all committed to science on equal footing and to building long-term research capacities in Ecuador.”

The future of deforestation

Dupérré finds that every return to Ecuador comes with a sense of loss. “We keep finding new places where the forest has disappeared.” Salazar points out that: “Deforestation of our forests is the greatest threat our biodiversity is facing. It destroys habitats and causes the extinction of entire species. I am particularly concerned about the forests in the Chocó region and the forested areas of the Ecuadorian Andes. Those are the places where most of our endemic species live.”
Apart from land use for livestock farming, illegal extraction of resources by drug cartels that control entire regions is a predominant cause of deforestation today. Salazar finds this to be a distressing reality that gravely marks his work. “We biologists avoid particular areas that have become too dangerous for us. We choose our research topics carefully weighing whether the working conditions in the field in question will be safe enough for us.”
Salazar is sincerely hoping that the situation in his country will improve someday. Thinking about what things will be like fifty years from now, he fears that only a few of the forests declared protected areas will still be alive then. One of them is the famous Mindo Cloud Forest, one of our planet’s most endangered terrestrial ecosystems that is, at the same time, amongst the ones offering the greatest degree of biodiversity.
The situation in Ecuador was one thing that brought Salazar back in 2016. He says: “I earned my doctorate in the US and worked in Brazil later on. However, the challenging situation in my homeland requires people on the ground who are ready to fight to preserve biodiversity and to continue their research. I want to contribute to that.” David Salazar and Nadine Dupérré are hoping for many scientists to join them while contributing to protecting the diversity of one of the most biodiverse countries in the world with their research at EGiB.

Putting it simply:
The Nagoya Protocol

The Nagoya Protocol is a supplementary agreement for implementing the goals of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), setting out requirements for equitable access to biodiversity in countries of origin, the use of genetic resources, and fair sharing of benefits.

Ecuador

Education and nature conservation

LIB researchers Dr Claudia Koch, Dr Ximo Mengual, and preparator Ricarda Wistuba combine research and education with nature conservation deep in the tropics of Ecuador. They started organising their annual two-week field trips through cloud and lowland rainforests for biology students from the University of Bonn in 2019. These projects are run in cooperation with Ecuadorian colleagues from the National Institute for Biodiversity (INABIO) in Quito. Students will conduct field work to identify insects, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Insect researcher and section head Mengual offers instruction in methods for trapping invertebrates, while biologist Wistuba teaches preparation of small mammals. The field trip content will also be available to Ecuadorian researchers in future workshops. “This cooperation has led to trusting research collaborations. The lack of necessary equipment on site frequently requires us to have samples from the Ecuadorian researchers analysed via the CT scanner in Bonn,” says herpetologist and section head Koch. The researchers describe new species together with their colleagues from INABIO. Twenty-six joint publications and 35 new species descriptions have already been released. As Wistuba points out: “This is how international cooperation contributes to the protection of biodiversity.”

Madagascar

Allies in protecting biodiversity

LIB scientist Dr Livia Schäffler can begin a certain part of her research as night falls at the Kirindy field station in the dry forest of western Madagascar, where she has been studying the nocturnal lemur Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur for more than two decades. This endemic local species is the world’s smallest primate, and one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates. “We engage in a long-term collaboration with the German Primate Centre to investigate development of the lemur populations and their forest habitat,” says Livia Schäffler, who trains and employs locals in her research projects.
“They are our best allies in protecting biodiversity,” says Schäffler. LIB researchers in the region now also investigate insects and agroecological aspects using molecular and technological methods to comprehensively assess and protect biodiversity. Schäffler continues: “We want to research biodiversity change more comprehensively and develop solutions for land use that supports both nature and the people in the region.”