Research into ecological security has aroused the widespread attention of scholars. The many differences in ecosystem type, number, spatial distribution and ecological evolutionary process has caused domestic scholars to be continuously innovating. In recent years, alongside enhancements to the basic theory and improvement in research systems, ecological security research has formed different research centers and broken new frontiers. This paper synthesizes information visualization methods, bibliometric methods and data mining algorithms and visualizes the development process and structural relationship of ecological security research using the information visualization analysis software, Citespace II. The research uses data from 299 articles about "ecological security" in the CSSCI database during 2000-2011. Using the co-citation network analysis and burst detection, we analyze the domestic research status of the ecological security research field.The results reveal that domestic research falls into categories of basis theories and system construction: the study of the origin of ecological security; ecological security basic theory; ecological risk assessment; ecological system assessment; and land ecological security, which form the main knowledge groups of domestic ecological security research. The ecological security co-citation network provides visual displays of the evolution path among the knowledge groups of ecological security research. This indicates that ecological security research formed the evolution of knowledge and theory, reflecting the coherence and extension of ecological security research. In short, "the study of the origin of ecological security" is at the edge of the network, showing some independence and is less associated with the follow-up study. "Ecological security basic theory" is in the network center and shows the basis theories of ecological security research. This shows a close correlation with the surrounding; "ecological risk assessment" and "ecological system assessment" which are closely linked to "ecological security basis theory". These are extended theories and the frontier branch of "ecological security basis theory". "Land ecological security" is the frontier branch of "ecological risk assessment". It has developed "ecological risk assessment" research and has provided the practical application of those theories. But the co-citation network also indicates that these research networks tend to be more centralized and have poor extension ability. Domestic ecological security research themes cluster into three core evolution routes: "the basic theoretical research of the ecological security". It indicates that ecological security research has gradually developed the basic theories and expanded ecological security concepts; "ecological security, ecosystem assessment, the regional ecological security assessment, ecological security alarm". It indicates that research topics begin with macro research into common eco-system assessment, which is then refined for the regional eco-system assessment; "ecological security, ecological risk assessment, rural resources ecosystem assessment, land ecological security, ecological security alarm". It indicates that ecological security research has been refined and applied to agro-ecosystems assessment. "Ecological security alert" and "land ecological security" are the current research frontiers. Ecological security research will be more likely to analyze and assess special ecological systems and further strengthen ecosystem scales and functional classification. Ecological security research will tend to create a dynamic, diverse ecosystem and strengthen research in ecosystem evolution and related research in the economy, human activity and ecosystems.