Prof. Zhang Qiya had a field trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and collected the wild amphibian (lizard) (R).

The 2nd International Symposium of Ranaviruses and 62nd International conference of Wildlife Disease Association were jointly organized in Knoxville, Tennessee from July 27th through August 2nd, 2013. Hundreds of scholars and experts from all around the world attended the symposium.  

At the invitation of Dr. Matthew Gray, director of the Global Ranavirus Consortium and Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, as well as Dr. V. Gregory Chinchar, Professor of the University of Mississippi, Prof. Zhang Qiya from Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IHB) attended this symposium and participated in a field trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for ranavirus sampling in plethodontid salamander communities.  

It is known that ranaviruses are capable of infecting amphibians from at least 14 families and over 70 individual species and also capable of causing illness and death in amphibians, reptiles and fish. Since 2011, the International Symposium of Ranaviruses was held every two years in an effort to discuss the threat of ranaviruses to ectotherms.