1 The mesoscavenger release hypothesis and implications for ecosystem 2 and human well-being 3 4 Christopher J. O’Bryan1,4,*, Matthew H. Holden2,3,4, and James E.M. Watson1,4,5 5 6 1School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia 7 2ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, 8 Australia 9 3Centre for Applications in Natural Resource Mathematics, School of Mathematics and Physics, The University 10 of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia 11 4Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, 12 Australia 13 5Global Conservation Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, New York, 14 USA 15 *Corresponding author 16 Christopher J. O’Bryan e-mail:
[email protected] 17 Matthew H. Holden e-mail:
[email protected] 18 James E.M. Watson e-mail:
[email protected] 19 20 Keywords: scavenger, vulture, predator, cascade, dynamic model, conservation, human- 21 wildlife conflict, food webs, trophic level, top-down release 22 Article type: Ideas & Perspectives 23 Number of words in the abstract: 135 24 Number of words in the main text: ~3,800 25 Number of references: 58 26 Number of figures and tables: 4 Figures, 1 Table 27 28 Corresponding author full details: Address: Christopher J. O’Bryan, 8 Cottenham Street, 29 Fairfield QLD, Australia 4103. Phone: +61 449 599 035. E-mail:
[email protected] 30 31 Data accessibility: no new data Author Manuscript 32 This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record.