No-tillage is beneficial for controlling ground-dwelling cricket population: Evidence from gut microbiota

The gut microbiota of soil animals, a key component of soil biodiversity, is critical for host fitness and agroecosystem functioning. Despite the fact that effects of conservation tillage on soil animals and soil microbial communities have been extensively investigated, soil animal-associated microbiota remains poorly understood. Crickets are a globally distributed group of soil macroarthropods in agroecosystems, and as one of the major contributors to negative impacts on crop growth and yield, exploring cricket gut microbiota provides a key mechanism for balancing soil pest management with ecosystem health in conservation agriculture. In this study, we investigated the bacterial and fungal communities in the guts of the cricket species Teleogryllus infernalis, using amplicon sequencing in three different tillage practices: conventional moldboard plow tillage with no straw mulch (CT), moldboard plow with straw mulch (MP) and no-tillage with straw cover (NT). The findings of the study revealed that conservation tillage altered the abundance of crickets and their gut microbiota. MP had the highest gut bacterial and fungal richness among the three treatments. The gut microbiota of female crickets was affected by different tillage practices, while there were no significant differences in male crickets. The positive interactions dominating the gut microbial co-occurrence network decreased with increasing intensity of conservation tillage. Distinct driving patterns were exhibited by gut bacterial and fungal communities, which were influenced by soil microhabitat conditions. The observed changes in diversity, composition, and network interaction of the gut microbiota were found to be closely related to the abundance of crickets. Structured equation models further revealed that conservation tillage drove the effects of gut microbes on cricket abundance by influencing soil microbial communities. Our results suggest that conservation tillage management influences both cricket gut microbial communities and cricket abundance by regulating soil conditions. Among the tillage practices studied, NT emerges as a potential strategy for reducing the abundance of soil-dwelling crickets and gut microbial diversity, making it a viable option for pest management in conservation agroecosystems.