Barnosky, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley and lead author on the Nature article.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

"These studies clearly indicate that atrazine is detrimental to amphibians, " said Dr Tyrone Hayes, associate professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley.

BBC: Weedkiller 'threatens frogs'

But, according to researchers who have been meeting in Chicago at a symposium of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, this anthropocentric approach has meant that interactions via vibrations of the ground (a means of communication known as seismic signalling) have been almost entirely overlooked.

ECONOMIST: Extra sensory perception