Title: Data from: Demography with drones: Detecting growth and survival of shrubs with unoccupied aerial systems DOI: 10.7923/xj7r-1d86 Data, code and/or products within this dataset support the following manuscript: Manuscript Title: Demography with drones: Detecting growth and survival of shrubs with unoccupied aerial systems Journal: Restoration Ecology DOI: 10.1111/rec.14106 Description/Abstract: Large-scale disturbances, such as megafires, motivate restoration at equally large extents. Measuring the survival and growth of individual plants plays a key role in current efforts to monitor restoration success. However, the scale of modern restoration (e.g., >10,000 ha) challenges measurements of demographic rates with field data. In this study, we demonstrate how unoccupied aerial system (UAS) flights can provide an efficient solution to the tradeoff of precision and spatial extent in detecting demographic rates from the air. We flew two, sequential UAS flights at two sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) common gardens to measure the survival and growth of individual plants. The accuracy of Bayesian-optimized segmentation of individual shrub canopies was high (73–95%, depending on the year and site), and remotely sensed survival estimates were within 10% of ground-truthed survival censuses. Stand age structure affected remotely sensed estimates of growth; growth was overestimated relative to field-based estimates by 57% in the first garden with older stands, but agreement was high in the second garden with younger stands. Further, younger stands (similar to those just after disturbance) with shorter, smaller plants were sometimes confused with other shrub species and bunchgrasses, demonstrating a need for integrating spectral classification approaches that are increasingly available on affordable UAS platforms. The older stand had several merged canopies, which led to an underestimation of abundance but did not bias remotely sensed survival estimates. Advances in segmentation and UAS structure from motion photogrammetry will enable demographic rate measurements at management-relevant extents. **Data Use** *License*: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License ([CC-BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)) *Recommended Citation*: Olsoy PJ, Zaiats A, Delparte DM, Germino MJ, Richardson BA, Roser AV, Forbey JS, Cattau ME, Caughlin TT. 2023. Data from: Demography with drones: Detecting growth and survival of shrubs with unoccupied aerial systems [Dataset]. University of Idaho. https://doi.org/10.7923/xj7r-1d86 **Funding** US National Science Foundation and Idaho EPSCoR: OIA-1757324 US National Science Foundation and Idaho EPSCoR: OIA-1826801 US National Science Foundation: BIO-2207158 **Ancillary Data Sets** Olsoy P, Zaiats A, Delparte D, Roop S, Roser A, Caughlin TT. 2022. Data from: High-resolution thermal imagery reveals how interactions between crown structure and genetics shape plant temperature [Data set]. University of Idaho. https://doi.org/10.7923/B68T-2S83 Resource URL: https://data.nkn.uidaho.edu/dataset/data-demography-drones-detecting-growth-and-survival-shrubs-unoccupied-aerial-systems Creator(s): 1. Full Name: Peter J Olsoy Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8785-0459 Affiliation(s): USDA Agricultural Research Service; Boise State University 2. Full Name: Andrii Zaiats Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8978-4152 Affiliation(s): Boise State University 3. Full Name: Donna M Delparte Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9107-5117 Affiliation(s): Idaho State University 4. Full Name: Matthew J Germino Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6326-7579 Affiliation(s): US Geological Survey 5. Full Name: Bryce A Richardson Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9521-4367 Affiliation(s): USDA Forest Service 6. Full Name: Anna V Roser Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5184-2916 Affiliation(s): Boise State University 7. Full Name: Jennifer Sorenson Forbey Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6069-4049 Affiliation(s): Boise State University 8. Full Name: Megan E Cattau Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2164-3809 Affiliation(s): Boise State University 9. Full Name: T. Trevor Caughlin Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6752-2055 Affiliation(s): Boise State University Other Contributor(s): 1. Full Name: Andrew Wright Child Unique identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6666-0739 Affiliation(s): University of Idaho Role: Data Manager Publisher: University of Idaho Publication Year: 2023 Language(s): American English Subject(s): 1 NATURAL SCIENCES 1.5 Earth and related Environmental sciences 1.6 Biological sciences 2 ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 2.7 Environmental engineering Keywords/Tags: drones; plant demography; sagebrush; segmentation; stand age structure; structure from motion photogrammetry Resource Type General: Dataset Dates: NULL Date available for the public: 2024-01-08 Sizes: 1.46 GB Format(s): tiff, shp, xml, txt Version: NULL Funding References: Funder Name: US National Science Foundation and Idaho EPSCoR Award Number: OIA-1757324 Award Title: RII Track-1: Linking Genome to Phenome to Predict Adaptive Responses of Organisms to Changing Landscapes Award URL: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1757324 Funder Name: US National Science Foundation and Idaho EPSCoR Award Number: OIA-1826801 Award Title: RII Track-2 FEC: Genomics Underlying Toxin Tolerance (GUTT): Identifying Molecular Innovations that Predict Phenotypes of Toxin Tolerance in Wild Vertebrate Herbivores Award URL: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1826801 Funder Name: US National Science Foundation Award Number: BIO-2207158 Award Title: EAGER: Scaling Up Plant Demographic Rates with Imagery from Unoccupied Aerial Systems Award URL: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2207158 Spatial/Geographical Coverage Location: Study Area Description: Idaho, USA Geospatial Extent: Easting: 115.998° W Westing: 116.99° W Northing: 43.322° N Southing: 43.303° N Point Location(s): NULL Temporal Coverage: Start Date: 2015 End Date: 2021 Granularity of the Data: NULL Contact Info: Contact Name: Peter J Olsoy Contact Email: peter.olsoy@usda.gov Related Content: Peer-Reviewed Manuscript-Restoration Ecology | https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.14106 Data/Code Files: Orchard_2015: Directory containing UAS files from Orchard Common Garden 2015 flights Orchard_2019: Directory containing UAS files from Orchard Common Garden 2019 flights readme.txt: project level metadata in readme.txt format xj7r-1d86.xml: project level metadata in DataCite xml format. shp: Project shape files Soda_2019: Directory containing UAS files from Soda Common Garden 2015 flights Soda_2021:Directory containing UAS files from Soda Common Garden 2021 flights