diff --git a/apis/r/tests/testthat/test-SOMAAxisQuery.R b/apis/r/tests/testthat/test-SOMAAxisQuery.R
index 006ca117b3..0475f4a1ff 100644
--- a/apis/r/tests/testthat/test-SOMAAxisQuery.R
+++ b/apis/r/tests/testthat/test-SOMAAxisQuery.R
@@ -42,4 +42,15 @@ test_that("SOMAAxisQuery", {
     SOMAAxisQuery$new(coords = list(foo = letters)),
     "'coords' must be a list of numeric vectors"
   )
+
+  ## check for numeric arguments becoming integer64 (issue #1537)
+  expt <- load_dataset("soma-exp-pbmc-small")
+  intq <- SOMAAxisQuery$new(coords = 1:2) 		# int as : operator creates ints
+  numq <- SOMAAxisQuery$new(coords = c(1, 2))   # numeric
+  expt_query <- SOMAExperimentAxisQuery$new(expt, "RNA", var_query = intq, obs_query = numq)
+  op <- getOption("arrow.int64_downcast")
+  options("arrow.int64_downcast"=FALSE) # else it becomes int
+  expect_true(inherits(expt_query$var_joinids()$as_vector(), "integer64"))
+  expect_true(inherits(expt_query$obs_joinids()$as_vector(), "integer64"))
+  options("arrow.int64_downcast"=op)
 })