The nearby Lynx-Cancer void is a good laboratory to study the effect of very rarefied environment on the evolution of the least massive dwarf galaxies. A recently compiled sample of this voids galaxies includes about one hundred objects with M_B in t
he range -12 to -18 mag. Good quality images are available in the SDSS database for ~80% of the sample. Their u,g,r,i,z photometry allows one to derive galaxy stellar mass (and, incorporating HI data, gas mass-fraction) and ages of visible stellar populations, and hence, the epoch of their formation (first SF episode). We present the first photometric results of the ongoing study of the Lynx-Cancer void.
Does the void environment have a sizable effect on the evolution of dwarf galaxies? If yes, the best probes should be the most fragile least massive dwarfs. We compiled a sample of about one hundred dwarfs with M_B in the range -12 to -18 mag, fallin
g within the nearby Lynx-Cancer void. The goal is to study their evolutionary parameters -- gas metallicity and gas mass-fraction, and to address the epoch of the first substantial episode of Star Formation. Here we present and discuss the results of O/H measurements in 38 void galaxies, among which several the most metal-poor galaxies are found with the oxygen abundances of 12+log(O/H)=7.12-7.3 dex.
