Mycotoxins as Environmental Pollutants: Epigenetic Modifications in Animals and Implications for Ecosystem Health

Mycotoxins are widespread environmental contaminants whose global prevalence and ecological impacts are intensifying due to climate change. However, their sublethal effects on wildlife populations and ecosystem stability remain significantly underexplored. Laboratory studies have demonstrated that mycotoxins induce epigenetic toxicity, but the implications of these molecular findings for populations and ecosystems are not yet fully understood. This review synthesizes current knowledge regarding mycotoxin-induced epigenetic modifications and evaluates their effects across multiple levels of biological organization. Mycotoxins can induce intergenerational effects in model organisms, but true transgenerational inheritance remains less established in mammals. These heritable epigenetic modifications could propagate from individuals to populations, potentially affecting food webs, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, although these outcomes remain largely hypothetical. To address these knowledge gaps, we propose an epigenetics-informed risk assessment framework that incorporates early-warning epigenetic biomarkers, accounts for both intergenerational and transgenerational effects, integrates multi-stressor interactions, and evaluates ecosystem-level responses under climate change scenarios. Implementing this framework will depend on field-deployable detection methods, enzyme-based bioremediation strategies, and climate-adaptive management under a One Health approach. This review highlights the urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address mycotoxin-induced epigenetic damage, which poses a potential threat to ecosystem integrity. However, the ecological consequences of these effects remain hypothetical and require further investigation.