Evolution of the passive mass function in the HD environment, including dry mergers. The solid line in each panel is the predicted GSMF in the HD environment, as in Fig. 9, assuming only mass quenching and the sSFR parametrisation of P10; yellow shaded area is the GSMF modified by dry mergers, whose percentage ranges from 5–10% (triple-dot-dashed line) to 15–30% (dot-dashed line) depending on the redshift bin. In each z-bin, red circles are the 1 /V_max estimates (with Poissonian errors) of the stellar mass function of the VIPERS passive galaxies (symbols are filled above the completeness limit ).