I have observed that some members on the platform have up to 3,000+ Merits and some have just none. Meanwhile some are in a particular rank for a long time. Mine is over a year and I am still a Newbie.
judging by your post history I am not surprised, it seems that you are not that active, you are also a bounty hunter. bounty hunters mostly post bounty reports that do not get merits. if you want to get merit I suggest starting participating in discussions outside the altcoin board.
The question is,
Does getting to a new membership Rank dependent on Merits, or they are just two independent awards?
you also need activity in order to rank up, right now you have 1 merit on your account but you only have 24 activities, if you reach 30 activities you will rank up to Jr. Member. OmegaStarScream shared some links where you can learn more about ranks and merits I suggest reading that thread.