Abstract

In times of precision cosmology, galaxies – the most prominent building blocks of the universe – remain a key challenge in astrophysics. We still lack the knowledge of a number of physical key processes that drive the formation and evolution of galaxies. Large-scale galaxy surveys such as the SDSS have led to tremendous progress in our understanding of the local galaxy population by analysing samples containing huge numbers of galaxies. The new generation of such surveys, SDSS -III, as well as the ongoing experiments Dark Energy Survey and SDSS -IV are taking this approach to significantly larger distances, look-back times, and new spatial scales. I will present recent results from these surveys discussing the 3-dimensional distribution of stellar population properties in galaxies, the relative roles of self-regulating processes versus galaxy environment, and the evolution of galaxy population properties and dark matter fractions with cosmic time.