Beyond Human Health: A Cross-Species Meta-Data Analysis of Environmental Xenobiotic Toxicity from Molecular Responses to Ecosystem Disruption

Environmental xenobiotics are increasingly recognised as stressors that affect organisms across biological levels, yet researchers often study their consequences at the level of individual species, pollutant categories, or toxicological endpoints. This fragmentation limits understanding of how molecular responses to contamination may translate into organismal impairment, population change, and ecosystem disruption. This review provides a cross-species, metadata-based synthesis of the biological and ecological effects of major environmental xenobiotics, including microplastics, heavy metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, persistent organic pollutants, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and other emerging contaminants. We systematically classify published evidence by pollutant type, environmental compartment, exposure route, taxonomic group, geographic region, study design, biological endpoint, and ecological outcome. We emphasise oxidative stress, genotoxicity, immune and endocrine disruption, metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunction, reproductive and developmental effects, behavioural alterations, and changes in organismal fitness. Cross-species comparisons identify conserved toxicological responses, species-specific vulnerabilities, and differences associated with exposure conditions and environmental context. The analysis further examines evidence linking molecular and organismal effects with population dynamics, trophic interactions, bioaccumulation, biomagnification, community structure, and ecosystem functions. By integrating toxicological and ecological evidence within a common metadata framework, this review identifies major geographic, taxonomic, methodological, and evidence-level gaps and highlights limitations in extrapolating molecular toxicity to ecosystem consequences. The proposed framework supports a One Health–One Environment perspective and provides a basis for more comparable, ecologically relevant, and cross-species assessment of environmental xenobiotic impacts.