These results will affect predictions of stellar population spectra, since increased abundances mean more obscuration by more dust. We may have to work backwards. Note that we suffer from the fact the we are surrounded by stars that came from a large part of the galaxy, and thus see results of chemical evolution mixed with Dynamical Evolution . The notion of quick bulge production with associated violent relaxation, followed by remaining gas collpasing to a disk with dissipation, then leisurely star formation and chemical evolution in the disk, stands up well. The peculiar knotty and lumpy structures of many high-redshift galaxies has led to models for wholesale morphological evolution.
Mergers certainly drive some present-day morphological evolution.
The upshot is that bright galaxies suffer major mergers at a rate 0.3-0.4 per Hubble time, with most of this concentrated in systems that are part of bound pairs.