Separation choosability and dense bipartite induced subgraphs

We study a restricted form of list colouring, for which every pair of lists that correspond to adjacent vertices may not share more than one colour. The optimal list size such that a proper list colouring is always possible given this restriction, we call separation choosability. We show for bipartite graphs that separation choosability increases with (the logarithm of) the minimum degree. This strengthens results of Molloy and Thron and, partially, of Alon. One attempt to drop the bipartiteness assumption precipitates a natural class of Ramsey-type questions, of independent interest. For example, does every trianglefree graph of minimum degree d contain a bipartite induced subgraph of minimum degree Ω(log d) as d → ∞?