Accepted Article This article has been accepted for publication and 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. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002/eap.1687 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Article type : Articles Running Head: Bayesian shark mortality estimation Title: Refining mortality estimates in shark demographic analyses: A Bayesian inverse matrix approach Author list: Jonathan J Smart* a,b , André E Punt c,d , William T White d,e and Colin A Simpfendorfer b Author affiliations: a SARDI Aquatic Sciences, 2 Hamra Ave, West Beach, SA, 5024, Australia b Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture & College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, 4108, Australia c School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Box 355020, Seattle, WA 98195-5020, USA d CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere, Hobart, TAS, Australia e Australian National Fish Collection, CSIRO National Research Collections Australia, Hobart, TAS, Australia * Corresponding author, e-mail: jonathan.smart@sa.gov.au