Paraguayan botanist at the National University of Asunción, Fátima Mereles was born in the capital and attended the same university for her undergraduate degree in biology. Undertaking her doctoral studies at the University of Geneva she completed a thesis on vegetation mosaics in the boreal Chaco of Paraguay, entitled: " Estudios en el mosaico de vegetación: bosque-sabanas palmares-humedales en el Chaco boreal, Paraguay". At the university in Asunción she works as a research professor in the Department of Biology, a department which she also directs. A member of CONACYT, the National Council for Science and Technology, she represents the Paraguayan Ministry for Culture and Education.

As a researcher Mereles has studied and collected the flora of her country, primarily focusing on the wetlands of Paraguay and the Chaco region, and is also particularly interested in the Cyperaceae family. Gathering plant specimens since 1976 she has amassed a collection of over 10,000 numbers, not only from Paraguay but also parts of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Switzerland. In Bolivia she worked on a Rapid Assessment Process (RAP) and in Europe undertook excursions in the Alps with the Botanical Society of Geneva. Also director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Paraguay, the bromeliad species from the boreal Chaco, Tillandsia mereliana Schinini, was named after her as its first collector. With numerous taxonomic publications and floristic inventories to her name, her most important recent publications include "Las plantas útiles de los humedales del Paraguay" (2004), "Caracterización del Sistema Chaco-Pantanal en Paraguay" (2004) and the Cyperaceae monograph for the Catálogo de las Plantas Vasculares del Cono Sur (2008).

Sources:
Personal communication, December 2009.