Chapter 6 Soil Contamination with Heavy Metals and Petroleum Derivates: Impact on Edaphic Fauna and Remediation Strategies Raphael Bastão de Souza, Thiago Guilherme Maziviero, Cintya Aparecida Christofoletti, Tamaris Gimenez Pinheiro and Carmem Silvia Fontanetti Additional information is available at the end of the chapter http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/52868 ŗ. Introduction Soil is characterized as a complex and dynamic system. It is constituted by several layers that differ in relation to the physical, chemical, mineralogical and biological nature, which are influenced by the climate and activities of the living organisms. ”esides contributing to the maintenance of all forms of life that occur in the terrestrial surface, soil plays an impor‐ tant role in protecting the groundwater acting as a collector filter of organic and inorganic residues, helping in sequestering possible toxic compounds [ŗ]. During the last decades of the twentieth century there was an awareness of the importance of the soil as an environmental component and recognition of the need to maintain or im‐ prove its capacity to allow it to perform its various functions. “t the same time there was a confirmation that the soil is not an inexhaustible resource and, if used improperly or poorly managed, its characteristics can be lost in a short period of time, with limited opportunities for regeneration [Ř]. However, the final disposal of potentially toxic residues in the soil has become a practical and inexpensive alternative and can cause alterations in the arthropod community [ř, Ś]. These species can present individual biological alterations ǻphysiological, morphological and behaviouralǼ, which can be extrapolated to field studies in order to analyze ecological © 2013 de Souza et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.