A Near-Infrared Selected Galaxy Redshift Survey

This thesis presents work on galaxy evolution at redshifts 0 < z
< 1.5 from a near-infrared selected galaxy redshift survey and
much larger optically selected galaxy catalogues where distances
were derived from photometric redshifts. Changes in the galaxy
population are characterised by the evolution of luminosity
functions, luminosity density, star-formation rate density and
specific star-formation rate. We find that the galaxy luminosity
function changes with increasing redshift in the sense that the
characteristic luminosity increases but the number density
decreases. This effect is smaller at rest-frame near-infrared
wavelengths and gets more pronounced at shorter wavelengths.
Furthermore, we use the specific star-formation rate to investigate
the build-up of stellar mass in galaxies showing that the most
massive galaxies formed the bulk of their stellar population at
very early times whereas low-mass galaxies still show ongoing
(maybe episodic) star-formation activity.