Galaxy morphology-environment link weakens sharply below 10^9 solar masses in 0.2<z<0.4 sample

The study combined HST visual morphologies with local density and filament-node distances for galaxies spanning eight orders of stellar mass. Lower-mass systems of both types sit farther from nodes and filament cores; above 10^9 M⊙, ETGs already avoid dense regions more than LTGs, but this offset vanishes at lower masses because filaments have finite radial extent and low-mass galaxies occupy only the outer, less interactive zones. Proximity to nodes suppresses coherent angular-momentum acquisition while filament cores raise merger rates, both favoring dispersion-supported ETGs at high mass. The authors conclude internal processes increasingly dominate below 10^9 M⊙.