The evolution of galaxies is driven by the birth and death of stars. AGB stars are at the end points of their evolution and therefore their luminosities directly reflect their birth mass; this enables us to reconstruct the star formation history. These cool stars also produce dust grains that play an important role in the temperature regulation of the interstellar medium (ISM), chemistry, and the formation of planets. These stars can be resolved in all of the nearby galaxies. Therefore, the Local Group of galaxies offers us a superb near-field cosmology site. Here we can reconstruct the formation histories, and probe the structure and dynamics, of spiral galaxies, of the many dwarf satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way and Andromeda, and of isolated dwarf galaxies. It also offers a variety of environments in which to study the detailed processes of galaxy evolution through studying the mass-loss mechanism and dust production by cool evolved stars. In this paper, I will first review our recent efforts to identify mass-losing Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars and red supergiants (RSGs) in Local Group galaxies and to correlate spatial distributions of the AGB stars of different mass with galactic structures. Then, I will outline our methodology to reconstruct the star formation histories using variable pulsating AGB stars and RSGs and present the results for rates of mass–loss and dust production by pulsating AGB stars and their analysis in terms of stellar evolution and galaxy evolution.

We use the very recently completed high-resolution IRAM CO survey of M33 with the high-resolution HI observations (published by Gratier et al. 2010, A&A, 522, 3) and Herschel Far-IR and submillimeter mapping observations to study how the dust behaves in the molecular and atomic gas phases of the interstellar medium (ISM). M33 is a “young" object in that it is gas-rich with a young stellar population and low metallicity as compared to large spirals like the Milky Way or Andromeda. Nonetheless, it is very clearly a spiral galaxy with a thin and reasonably axisymmetric disk. As such, it can be viewed as a stepping stone towards less evolved objects like magellanic irregulars (including the LMC and SMC) and perhaps distant objects in the early universe. More specifically, we look for radial variations in the dust emission spectrum (β parameter) as well as comparing regions dominated by either H2 or HI. The grey-body emission spectrum flattens (lower β) with galactocentric distance and generally is flatter in the atomic medium as compared to the molecular gas.