About Dr Annette Herz

"I actually wanted to become a wolf researcher" - Annette Herz began her biology studies at Saarland University with this goal in mind. However, her interest in predator-prey interactions and forest ecology then led her to entomology, where she completed her degree in 1992 under Prof Dr Georg Mosbacher on the importance of predatory beetles in the regulation of bark beetles. She then went to the Faculty of Forestry at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Freising, where she completed her doctorate in 1997 under Prof. Dr Reinhard Schopf on the structuring of parasitoid communities of the pine bush hornworm wasp in different forest types and phases of host populations. During her postdoctoral period, she was involved in an international research project on the pheromone biology of the Diprionidae and the possible applications for monitoring these forest pests. In 1999, she moved to the Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, where she worked on methods for the biological control of insect pests in vegetable, fruit and olive cultivation. After a brief excursion into the private sector, Annette Herz then took up a position at the Institute for Biological Plant Protection at the Julius Kühn Institute in 2008, then still in Darmstadt and since 2022 in Dossenheim. As head of the "Beneficial Organisms and Functional Biodiversity" department, she is primarily concerned with the selection and testing of invertebrate beneficial organisms with a focus on parasitoid wasps for the regulation of novel insect pests such as walnut and Mediterranean fruit flies, box tree moths, tomato leaf miners and cherry vinegar flies. Another focus of her work is the creation of resources for beneficial insects (especially parasitoid wasps and hoverflies) in agricultural ecosystems, both through the design of ecological infrastructures in the crop (e.g. in fruit growing) and also through diversification of the agricultural landscape, e.g. through mixed crops or the cultivation of crops that provide suitable flowering resources for beneficial insects (buckwheat, camelina, medicinal and aromatic plants, etc.). In recent years, she has also been involved in the development of permanent beneficial insect monitoring in the agricultural landscape - her team is working on innovative ways of recording insects (especially hoverflies) using environmental DNA and AI-based detection methods. Annette Herz is a member of several national and international professional societies and has been a representative of the Publication Commission of the IOBC-WPRS since 2008. Since 2009, she has been a member of the "Joint EPPO/IOBC Panel on Biological Control Agents", working on the design of guidelines for the risk assessment of invertebrate beneficial organisms, including the creation of a "positive list" for biological plant protection. Until recently, Annette Herz also headed the DGaaE/DPG working group "Beneficial arthropods and entomopathogenic nematodes", organised the annual meetings and regularly reported on them in the DGaaE News. But now it's time for new tasks - like being on the DGaaE board! In her private life, however, she still enjoys going into the forest and looking for wolves, among other things...