Benthic organisms and their bioturbation activities have a profound effect on a multitude of sediment properties. While many studies have already explored benthic impacts at small temporal and spatial scales, little is known on how the small-scale effects accumulate and interactively guide large-scale (km-scale) morphological evolution. Here we firstly summarize the most important processes of benthos affecting sediment stability and then explore existing biomorphodynamic modeling studies both at small- and large-scales. In general, microbenthos (body size <0.1 mm) mainly stabilizes sediments while meio- (0.1–1 mm) and macrobenthos (>1 mm) may stabilize or destabilize sediments. Among all types of sediment, fine-grained fraction (silt and clay) is most sensitive to the impact of benthos. Benthic organisms have the capability to mediate sediment transport and sedimentation patterns beyond their habitats on the long-term and over a large-scale. However, so far, numerical models evaluating benthic impact are limited to explorative studies and have not reached a stage where they can be used for predictive modeling. The barriers hindering a further development of biomorphodynamic models include not only limited understanding of fundamental biological/bio-physical processes affecting morphological development and dynamic feedback loops among them but also a shortage of data for model calibration and confirmation of simulation results. On the other hand, thriving for higher model complexity does not necessarily lead to better performance. Before conducting biomorphodynamic modeling, researchers must figure out which questions can be answered in a meaningful sense with simulation results that can be compared with observations and which level of modeling complexity is sufficient for that purpose.

底栖生物及其生物扰动活动对多种沉积物性质具有深远的影响。虽然许多研究已经在小时间和空间尺度上探索了底栖影响，但对小尺度效应如何积累和交互指导大尺度（公里尺度）形态演化知之甚少。在这里，我们首先总结了影响沉积物稳定性的底栖生物最重要的过程，然后探索现有的小尺度和大尺度生物形态动力学模型研究。一般来说，小型底栖动物（体型 <0.1 毫米）主要稳定沉积物，而小型底栖动物（0.1-1 毫米）和大型底栖动物（>1 毫米）可能稳定或破坏沉积物。在所有类型的沉积物中，细粒部分（淤泥和粘土）对底栖生物的影响最为敏感。底栖生物有能力长期和大规模地调节超出其栖息地的沉积物运输和沉积模式。然而，到目前为止，评估底栖影响的数值模型仅限于探索性研究，还没有达到可以用于预测建模的阶段。阻碍生物形态动力学模型进一步发展的障碍不仅包括对影响形态发展的基本生物/生物物理过程和它们之间的动态反馈回路的理解有限，而且还包括缺乏用于模型校准和模拟结果确认的数据。另一方面，追求更高的模型复杂性并不一定会带来更好的性能。在进行生物形态动力学建模之前，