Recent observations with the Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) have revealed that a large fraction of late-type ( Sc and later ) spiral galaxies harbor a bright , compact stellar cluster in their dynamical centers .
Statistics of the mass , age , and star formation history of these clusters as a function of their host galaxy ’ s Hubble type can be used to constrain models of secular galaxy evolution .
Since late-type spirals by definition do not possess a prominent bulge , their nuclear clusters are more easily separated from the underlying disk population .
Their spectroscopic properties can thus be studied from ground-based observations .
Here , I will discuss plans for , and first results of , a program to study a sample of known nuclear clusters in late-type spirals .
For one galaxy ( IC 342 ) , we have used high-resolution near infrared spectroscopy to determine the cluster mass directly via its stellar velocity dispersion .
The analysis conclusively shows a very low mass-to-light ratio for the nuclear cluster in \object IC 342 , indicative of a young cluster age ( \approx 50 Myrs ) .
From probability arguments , this result favors the scenario that such bursts are a recurrent phenomenon in late-type spiral nuclei .