ALT Diagram showing the mechanisms that lead towards tree mortality. Hypothesized mechanisms, including pools and fluxes, that influence mortality as drought progresses. Primary water and carbohydrate pools are in blue and green circles, respectively, with their fluxes as resistors and green arrows. Interactions between water and carbon pools are in orange. As drought progresses, stomatal and belowground conductance decline to near zero. gres (residual conductance from foliage and bark post-stomatal closure) then dominates water loss and plant survival depends on the finite, stored carbon and water pools. Ultimately, dehydration and depletion of these pools promotes sustained negative turgor (dashed orange circles), followed by meristem death (dashed red circles) from the cellular water content falling below a threshold for cellular rupture. The black circle within the stem and root carbohydrate pools indicates the point at which there is insufficient carbohydrates to recover via regrowth.