Effects of <i>Tetranychus urticae</i> infection on phyllosphere microbial community assembly of <i>Vigna unguiculata</i>

<i>Tetranychus urticae</i> are among the most important leaf-damaging plant-pests, causing severe crop losses worldwide. The plant phyllosphere microbe plays fundamental roles in plant growth and health. However, little is known about how <i>T. urticae</i> and phyllosphere microbes interact to impact plant health. In this study, we used amplicon sequencing to explore the changes in phyllosphere microbes between infected and uninfected <i>Vigna unguiculata</i> leaves by <i>T. urticae</i>. The results showed that the diversity of epiphytic bacteria and endophytic fungi can be significantly decreased, influenced the community structure of the phyllosphere microbe, and decreased co-occurrence network connectivity and complexity of phyllosphere microbes after infection of <i>T. urticae</i>. After infection by <i>T. urticae</i>, <i>V. unguiculata</i> recruited some beneficial microbes (<i>Rickettsia</i>, <i>Naganishia</i>, <i>Brevundimonas</i>, and <i>Aspergillus</i>) to the phyllosphere. PICRUSt and FUNGuild predictive analysis indicated that infection of <i>T. urticae</i> can cause the changes of the function of the phyllosphere fungi. Null model analysis indicated that assembly of epiphytic and endophytic fungal community changed from deterministic processes to stochastic processes after infection of <i>T. urticae</i>, while assembly of epiphytic and endophytic bacterial community changed from stochastic processes to deterministic processes. Our findings provided new insights into interactions among phyllosphere microbes-pest-plants.