  A great deal of our understanding of star formation in the local universe has
been built upon an extensive foundation of H-alpha observational studies.
However, recent work in the ultraviolet (UV) with GALEX has shown that star
formation rates (SFRs) inferred from H-alpha in galactic environments
characterized by low stellar and gas densities tend to be less than those based
on the UV luminosity. The origin of the discrepancy is actively debated because
one possible explanation is that the stellar initial mass function is
systematically deficient in high mass stars in such environments. In this
contribution, we summarize our work on this topic using a dwarf galaxy
dominated sample of ~300 late-type galaxies in the 11 Mpc Local Volume. The
sample allows us to examine the discrepancy between H-alpha and UV SFRs using a
statistical number of galaxies with activities less than 0.1 Msun/yr. A range
of potential causes for such an effect are reviewed. We find that while the IMF
hypothesis is not inconsistent with our observations, alternate explanations
remain that must be investigated further before a final conclusion can be
drawn.
