[4][5][6] On the one hand, macrobenthos plays a vital role in maintaining ecosystem functions, such as material cycling in sediments and energy flow in food webs.
On the other hand, macrobenthos is relatively sedentary and therefore reflects the ambient conditions of sediments, in which many pollutants (e.g., heavy metals and organic enrichment) are ultimately partitioned.
[7][8][9] Heavy metal pollution is one of the most common anthropogenic pressures that impact marine ecosystems (e.g., intertidal zones, coastal waters, and estuaries), which has been documented by many studies throughout the world.
[10][11][12] Heavy metal contaminants can result in adverse toxic effects on benthic organisms,[13][14] leading to the changes in composition, structure, and ecosystem function of macrobenthic communities.
For example, polychaetes Capitella capitata and Heteromastus filiformis are naturally tolerant to environmental disturbance, which could live well in a highly organic enrichment and/or heavy metal polluted area,[21][7][22] while some taxa (e.g., polychaete Magelona dakini and amphipods Perioculodes longimanus) are inherently sensitive to environmental disturbance, and could not survive in such highly polluted zones.