Interaction-Triggered Star Formation in Distant Galaxies and the Role of
  Mergers in Galaxy Evolution
  The evolution of galaxy merger rates and its impact on galaxy properties have
been studied intensively over the last decade. It becomes clear now that
various types of mergers, i.e. gas-rich (wet), gas-poor (dry), or mixed
mergers, affect the merger products in different ways. The epoch when each type
of merger dominates also differs. In this talk, I review the recent progress on
the measurements of galaxy merger rates out to z ~ 3 and the level of
interaction-triggered star formation using large samples from various redshift
surveys. These results provide insights to the importance of mergers in the
mass assembly history of galaxies and in the evolution of galaxy properties. I
also present new results in characterizing the environment of galaxy mergers,
and discuss their implications in the built up of red-sequence galaxies.
