Pesticide exposure in Eriocheir sinensis: Oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, gut-hepatopancreas axis impairment, and systems toxicology.

Pesticide application for rice protection creates continuous, multi-pathway chemical stress for the Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis), challenging the sustainability of integrated rice-crab co-culture systems. Knowledge remains fragmented across environmental fate, toxicological mechanisms, risk assessment, and management practices. To bridge these gaps, this review proposes a holistic "source-to-governance" framework. It synthesizes multi-pathway exposure and bioaccumulation dynamics, then describes multidimensional toxic effects, ranging from acute lethality to chronic sublethal impairments, with a focus on oxidative stress, endocrine disruption, gut-hepatopancreas axis dysfunction, and programmed cell death. Evaluating the limitations of conventional paradigms in handling realistic, dynamic, and combined exposures, we propose a next-generation mechanistic risk assessment framework that integrates Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) with toxicokinetic-toxicodynamic (TK-TD) modeling and probabilistic methods. This understanding is further translated into a proactive, resilience-based management strategy (green alternatives, precision application, ecological interception, host protection, and intelligent monitoring-governance systems). Collectively, this review provides mechanism-based insights and systematic solutions to support the long-term sustainability of rice-crab co-culture systems.