CARBONDALE - Southern Illinois University Carbondale graduate students Marla L. Coppolino and Stephanie Clutts are helping their zoology professor Frank Anderson organize the annual American Malacological Society meeting.

And when these students visit with other cephalopod researchers at that time, they will likely raise some eyebrows and answer a lot of questions.

Coppolino and Clutts research snails that are abundant in this part of the state because of the green terrain and moisture.

"Land snails are not pests," Coppolino said. "They are a vital component of the ecosystem."

Clutts spends much of her time looking through the microscope as she helps to sequence DNA material from particular or recognizable species of snail.

Coppolino collects data, does field work and is researching land snail abundance and diversity in six Southern Illinois counties.

"We've never had a quantitative study of land snails in Southern Illinois," she said. "About 70 percent of the state species of land snails are located in Southern Illinois. All in all, we have 90 different species of land snails in this region."