We use a high-resolution dissipationless simulation to study the evolution
of the dark matter and halo distributions in a spatially flat cosmological
model dominated by a cosmological constant Lambda and cold dark matter (Lam
bda CDM). In order to quantify the evolution of structure, we calculate the
Minkowski functionals of the haloes and the dark matter component at vario
us redshifts. A comparison of Minkowski functionals and the more standard c
orrelation function analysis shows that the Minkowski functionals contain i
nformation about correlation functions of arbitrary order. While little evo
lution of the Minkowski functionals of haloes between z = 4 and 0 is observ
ed, we find that the Minkowski functionals of the dark matter evolve rapidl
y with time. The difference of the Minkowski functionals of haloes and dark
matter can be interpreted as a scale-dependent bias. This implies that sca
le-dependent bias is a property not only of the two-point halo correlation
function, but also of correlation functions of higher order.