current epoch is needed for comparison.

Empirical and theoretical oxygen abundance calibrations often introduce bias, further limiting the M-Z relationship [e.g., @yin07; @perez-montero09; @moustakas10; @berg11]. Notably, for 53,000 SDSS galaxies, which span 10 orders in B-band magnitude, @tremonti04 found a dispersion of 0.16 for their L-Z relationship and 0.10 for their M-Z relationship. @lee06a [hereafter L06] were able to extend the mass-metallicity relation lower by 2.5 decades in stellar mass using 4.5 $\mu$m luminosities for 27 nearby dwarf irregular galaxies. Interestingly, L06 found the dispersion in the near-infrared L-Z relationship to be smaller than the corresponding dispersion in the B-band L-Z relationship and nearly identical to that of the M-Z relationship. The smaller dispersion in the near-infrared is not totally unexpected, as NIR luminosities are less sensitive to extinction from dust and variations in star formation rate. However, the significant but uncertain stochastic effects of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars on the total NIR luminosities of low luminosity galaxies must also be considered [see, e.g., @fouesneau10; @meidt12; @melbourne12].

To thoroughly examine the L-Z and M-Z relations, we need a robust sample of galaxies. The *Spitzer* Local Volume Legacy survey[^1] [LVL; @dale09] covers a volume-complete sample of 258 galaxies in the 