To understand land snails and what threats they face, I first had to understand the habitat they live in and how it shapes diversity. To start off, I had to pick a geographical area with exceptional biological diversity:
- 21 Sites across the East Vättern scarp landscape were chosen based on a few common factors, such as presence of permanent water flow and deciduous hardwood forests.
- At each site, several habitat factors were surveyed in detail. This included soil pH, dead wood volume, tree species diversity, boulder coverage, among others.
- Land snails were primarily collected in field by top soil collection. Visual counts were performed for threatened species.
- Soil samples were finally dried and examined for shells in laboratory, where species occurrence and abundance was recorded.