Ricardo M. Holdo
Associate Professor
Phone: (706) 542-0075
Email: rholdo@uga.edu
Office: Ecology 188B
Jason Donaldson
Postdoctoral Associate
Email: Jason.Donaldson@uga.edu
Jason is from Cape Town, South Africa, and received his Ph.D. from the University of the Witwatersrand, where he focused on interactions between fire, herbivores and vegetation in the Kruger National Park. Before joining our lab, Jason was a post-doc at Wake Forest University where he studied savanna dynamics and trophic cascades in the Serengeti National Park as part of Prof. T. Michael Anderson’s lab. Currently, he is conducting research in Serengeti as part of a collaborative project with Yale University, the University of Glasgow, Wake Forest University and the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute to analyze the effects of migrating wildebeest on macroparasite loads in resident herbivores. When in Athens, he is looking forward to exploring the trails of the Appalachian Mountains and watching live college football.
Michael Belovitch, M.Sc.
Ph.D. Student
Email: Belovimw@gmail.com
Michael is a PhD student working on savanna tree and grass responses to water stress. He has a broad range of research interests, from individual plant physiology, to inter-specific interactions, to modeling ecosystem level processes to be used in applied contexts. Michael’s past research at the Warnell School of Forestry (UGA) focused on ecohydrology within longleaf pine savannas of south Georgia. His project quantified the impact of hydraulic redistribution to the plant communities of this ecosystem and how access to groundwater differs between tree species. In his free time, Michael enjoys hiking, playing board games, and making pottery at Athens’ local studio.
Isabel Wargowsky
Research Assistant
Isabel conducted her B.S. and M.S. research on root functional traits in savanna tree and grass species, and is currently working in the lab as a research assiastant. She focused on characterizing root architecture and xylem vessel anatomy in common South African savanna tree and grass species, and the role these traits play in plant performance.
Lab Alumni
Phoebe Judge (M.S. student)
Cece Working (M.S. student)
Niki Gajjar (B.S. student, undergraduate research assistant)
Jules NeSmith, Lab Manager and Research Assistant
Annabelle Barr (undergraduate research assistant)
Juliet Eden (B.A. Student, undergraduate research volunteer)
Laura Lenz (B.A. Student, undergraduate research volunteer)
Brooke Amerson (undergraduate research volunteer)
Kathryn King (undergraduate research volunteer)
Lucia Sol Mochi (Visiting Ph.D. Student and Fullbright Scholar, University of Buenos Aires)