  We examine the global properties of the stellar and HI components of 229 low
HI mass dwarf galaxies extracted from the ALFALFA survey, including a complete
sample of 176 galaxies with HI masses < 10^{7.7} M_sun and HI line widths < 80
km s^{-1}. SDSS data are combined with photometric properties derived from
GALEX to derive stellar masses (M_*) and star formation rates (SFRs) by fitting
their UV-optical spectral energy distributions (SEDs). In optical images, many
of the ALFALFA dwarfs are faint and of low surface brightness; only 56% of
those within the SDSS footprint have a counterpart in the SDSS spectroscopic
survey. A large fraction of the dwarfs have high specific star formation rates
(SSFRs) and estimates of their SFRs and M_* obtained by SED fitting are
systematically smaller than ones derived via standard formulae assuming a
constant SFR. The increased dispersion of the SSFR distribution at M_* < 10^8
M_sun is driven by a set of dwarf galaxies that have low gas fractions and
SSFRs; some of these are dE/dSphs in the Virgo cluster. The imposition of an
upper HI mass limit yields the selection of a sample with lower gas fractions
for their M_* than found for the overall ALFALFA population. Many of the
ALFALFA dwarfs, particularly the Virgo members, have HI depletion timescales
shorter than a Hubble time. An examination of the dwarf galaxies within the
full ALFALFA population in the context of global star formation laws is
consistent with the general assumptions that gas-rich galaxies have lower star
formation efficiencies than do optically selected populations and that HI disks
are more extended than stellar ones.
