Phu Thi Tran

In urban environments, landscape plants play a crucial role. Greenery provides a fresh and vibrant atmosphere, reducing the monotony of rigid concrete structures. Planting trees and greenery in urban areas helps improve the quality of the environment by reducing air pollution, noise, and the urban heat island effect. This, in turn, improves air quality, as well as the physical and mental well-being of urban residents. This study aims to understand the status of pests and diseases affecting landscape plants and propose measures to manage, mitigate, and enhance their resilience in urban environments, with the further application of GIS technologies to develop a data system that will help manage landscape plants quickly and most efficiently. The study utilizes morphological comparison methods to classify plants and identify pests and diseases on landscape plants. In addition, GIS technology is applied for digitizing the collected data using Mapinfo Professional 15 software. The study has collected data on over 500 managed landscape plants along the major roads of Hai Chau District, Da Nang, resulting in the identification of 27 plant species and 12 types of pests and diseases affecting them. In general, the current status of landscape plants in the study area is favorable, pest and disease infestation is minimal. Only a few trees have been found to be leaning or at risk of falling, suggesting their removal and replacement with new trees. Based on the collected data, the authors have created a digitized greenery map of the study area.

This study investigated the distribution of C, N, and selected trace elements (B, Cu, Mo, Zn, As, Cr, Cd, and Pb) in surface soils (0–20 cm) from two functional zones (paddy soils and bund soils) across three topographic regions (coastal, inland, and upland) in 38 long-term (over 50 years continuous crop season) rice-growing communes of central Vietnam. Multivariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that differences in the elemental concentrations were more strongly influenced by the soil type than by the regional variation (P < 0.05), while the one-way ANOVA showed that no consistent differences in the elemental content were observed among the three regions, except for the upland soils exhibiting significantly higher concentrations of Cr, Cu, and Zn (P < 0.05). Bund soils had significantly higher levels of C, N, and B than paddy soils (P < 0.05), whereas other elemental concentrations were similar between the two zones. The bioconcentration factors of Cd (4.10–15.75) and Zn (1.91–5.16) were substantially higher than those of the other elements, indicating greater mobility and plant uptake potential. Principal component analysis revealed that potential toxic elements exhibited stronger correlations with one another and with soil organic matter than with mineral nutrients, indicating similar geochemical behavior and potential co-accumulation pathways. These findings offer new insights into the spatial variability and ecological interactions of trace elements in rice agroecosystems, highlighting the requirement for site-specific soil management and contaminant risk assessment in central Vietnam.

During the collection of macrofungi resources in Son Tra Nature Reserve, Danang, Vietnam, two fungal specimens of the genus Anthracophyllum, designated as M34295 and M3457, living on dead still-attached branches of Mussaenda frondosa L. at an elevation around 360 m above the sea level were recorded. The morphological characteristics of the specimens shared some common characteristics with Anthracophyllum spp. However, the specimens possessed some distinct characteristics from other Anthracophylllum species. The phylogenetic analyses based on the combined internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and Large Subunit (LSU) molecular markers of ribosomal RNA genes revealed that the two specimens clustered in a single clade at species level with all tested Anthracophyllum species with strong bootstrap support of 99%. Among Anthracophyllum genus, our specimens seemed closest to A. archeri in morphological and genetic characteristics. Based on the combination of morphological approaches and multilocus phylogenetic analyses, we introduced Anthracophyllum sontraense sp. nov. as a new species. A. sontraense was characterized by its skewed bell-like basidiome with the color of dark blue to midnight blue, 1.0 − 1.5 cm diam, stipeless, light pink lamellae, sparse, occasionally branching. Basidiospores broadly ovoid to subglobose, 6–7 × 5.5–6 µm. To our knowledge, this is the first record of Anthracophyllum fungus in Vietnam.