  By combining the VVDS with the SWIRE data, we have built the currently
largest spectroscopic sample of galaxies selected in the rest-frame
near-infrared. These allow us to investigate, for the first time using
spectroscopic redshifts, the clustering evolution of galaxies selected from
their rest-frame near-infrared luminosity in the redshift range 0.2<z<2.1.
Therefore we use the projected two-point correlation function wp(rp) to study
the three dimensional clustering properties of galaxies detected at 3.6 and 4.5
microns with IRAC and for which we have spectroscopic redshifts from first
epoch VVDS. We find that in the flux limited samples at 3.6 and 4.5 microns,
the clustering length does not change from redshift ~2 to the present. In
addition, we find that the clustering lengths are systematically higher when
galaxy samples are selected from increasingly redder wavelengths. These values
are larger than the typical values found for I-band selected galaxies in the
same redshift range, but we find that the difference in clustering length
between I-band and 3.6/4.5 microns selected samples is decreasing with
increasing redshift to become comparable at z~1.5. We interpret this as
evidence that galaxies with older stellar populations and galaxies actively
forming stars reside in comparably overdense environments at epochs earlier
than z~1.5. The increasing difference in clustering length observed between
rest-frame UV-optical and infrared selected samples could then be an indication
that star formation is gradually shifting to lower density regions as cosmic
time increases.
