Global galaxy stellar mass functions in four different redshift bins. Red filled points represent 1/V_max determination and associated Poisson errors, while the lines represent the Schechter fits. The global GSMFs are not reproduced well by a single Schechter function (dotted lines), but by two Schechter functions (continuous lines) up to z = 0.55. In the first two redshift bins, the GSMFs show the inflection points of the bimodality around ℳ  ~ 5  ×  10⁹ ℳ_⊙. The dashed vertical lines represent the mass limit in the corresponding redshift bin (ℳ_min). Data are plotted as lower limits below ℳ_min. Upper limits at 1σ (i.e. 1.84 objects) are shown at the high-mass end. Small black dots in all panels represent the local GSMF by Baldry et al. (2008). The cross at the right top of the first panel shows an estimate of the cosmic variance and mass uncertainties.