Making axis labels italic when using names.arg (R)

Question

I have labelled my axis using the function names.arg, just wondering how to make these labels italic. Here's my code below. (Using R)

barplot(species_and_abundance_$Abundance, ylim = c(0,44), names.arg = species_and_abundance_$Species, las=2, cex.names = 0.8, ylab="Species Abundance", xlab="Species")