Mycotoxin risks in Mediterranean agroecosystems: the maize paradigm linking plant health, climate change, and food/feed chains

Mycotoxin contamination is a major concern for food and feed safety, particularly in Mediterranean agroecosystems, where climatic variability strongly affects fungal ecology and crop susceptibility. This paper reconsiders, mycotoxin-producing fungi from a plant health perspective, framing contamination as the outcome of interactions among host plants, fungus communities, and environments. Multiple fungal species often co-exist, resulting in frequent co-occurrence of mycotoxins and complex contamination patterns. Maize was assessed as a paradigmatic system, highlighting the close links between plant infections, feed contamination, and food safety. These links include carry-over metabolism of aflatoxin B1 into aflatoxin M1, following ingestion of contaminated feed by dairy cows, and excretion of aflatoxin M1 in milk. Climate change can further modify these dynamics, by reshaping ecological niches, increasing crop stress, and causing shifts in fungal communities, with consequences for both the intensity and distribution of mycotoxin contamination. Mycotoxin risk is a dynamic, system-level issue, affecting entire food/feed chains. Addressing this complexity requires integrated approaches, that combine plant health management, monitoring, and predictive modelling to support risk assessment under changing environmental conditions.