During the last decades considerable work on early life ecology, supported by ecological, physical, physiological and molecular genetic approaches has been conducted. The establishment of benthic communities on a wide variety of sub-strates has been investigated thoroughly, covering different phases of the coloni-zation process. It has become evident that the processes underlying community development are dissimilar for soft and hard bottoms. Most of these studies, how-ever, were conducted in temperate and tropical regions whereas information from polar regions is scarce. Here, characteristic factors such as iceberg scouring and retreating ice as a result of global warming initialize the process of community succession, which with a few exceptions appears to be generally much slower compared with warmer habitats.I present results from my in situ experiments conducted in the Arctic glacial Kongsfjorden (Svalbard) and compare the community development with that of lower latitudes as well as with the scarce results from the Antarctic. My approach draws upon a variety of manipulative field and lab experiments, statistical ap-proaches, biogeochemical processes and rates, and molecular population genetics.