Many arthropods modify parts of plants through the construction of domiciles or by consuming plant tissues that, after abandoned, can be used as shelter by other arthropods in a facilitating interaction process. We examined, for the first time, the potential of leaf-rolling mites to indirectly influence arthropod communities in natural forests by providing shelter sites. In early June 2019, we found a high density of leaves of Amphitecna tuxtlensis (Bignoniaceae) rolled by an undetermined leaf-rolling mite species in a tropical rainforest, in Mexico. We tested whether the species richness, abundance, and colonization frequency of arthropods was greater in rolled compared with expanded leaves. We collected 5 rolled leaves and 5 fully expanded leaves from 15 A. tuxtlensis trees (N = 150 sampled leaves) and recorded all arthropods on each leaf. We recorded 1421 arthropods from 67 unique morphospecies. We found 39 individuals from 23 morphospecies of arthropods in expanded leaves, and 1382 individuals from 56 morphospecies in rolled leaves. Ants were the most abundant and frequent group and utilized the rolled leaves mainly as nesting sites; 1260 ant individuals were found in 30 nests from three species. Arthropod species richness, abundance, and colonization frequency were greater in rolled leaves compared with expanded leaves. We concluded that the ecosystem engineering effect of leaf-rolling mites may be an important structuring element for arthropod communities on plants through an increase of high quality food resources and shelter sites for other arthropods, as well as nesting sites for ants.

许多节肢动物通过居住地的构造或食用植物组织来修饰植物的某些部分，这些植物在废弃后可以被其他节肢动物用作庇护所，以促进相互作用。我们首次检查了翻叶螨通过提供庇护所而间接影响天然林中节肢动物群落的潜力。在2019年6月上旬，我们在墨西哥的热带雨林中发现了由未确定的卷叶螨物种卷起的高密度双歧杆菌（Bignoniaceae）叶片。我们测试了与扩展叶相比，滚动后节肢动物的物种丰富度，丰度和定居频率是否更高。我们从15棵A.tuxtlensis树（N = 150个采样叶）并记录每片叶子上的所有节肢动物。我们记录了67个独特形态物种中的1421个节肢动物。我们从扩展叶片中的23种节肢动物形态中发现了39个个体，在卷曲叶片中发现了56种形态动物中的1382个个体。蚂蚁是最丰富和频繁的群体，主要利用卷叶作为筑巢的场所。在三个物种的30个巢中发现了1260只蚂蚁。与膨胀叶相比，卷叶中节肢动物的丰富度，丰度和定殖频率更高。我们得出的结论是，通过增加优质食品资源和其他节肢动物的栖息地以及蚂蚁的筑巢地，卷叶螨的生态系统工程效应可能是节肢动物群落对植物的重要结构要素。