During recent decades, considerable work on early life history, supported by ecological, physical, physiological and molecular genetic approaches, has been reported. The establishment of benthic communities on a wide variety of substrates has been investigated thoroughly, covering different phases of the colonization process. It has become evident that the processes underlying community development are dissimilar for soft and hard bottoms. However, most of these studies were conducted in temperate and tropical regions whereas information from polar regions is scarce. At higher latitudes, characteristic factors such as iceberg scouring and ice retreat associated with global warming initiate the process of community succession, which with a few exceptions appears to be generally much slower in comparison with warmer habitats.Here, in situ experiments conducted in the Arctic glacial Kongsfjorden (Svalbard) and comparison of community development with that of lower latitudes as well as with the scant results from the Antarctic will be presented.