The environment in mountainous areas is sensitive to global change; recent changes in the mountain environment have had profound effects on terrestrial freshwater and biological resources. Recent studies on these changes have dramatically improved our understanding of landscape ecology in mountainous areas. We analyzed publications on landscape ecology in mountainous areas from 2000 onwards, reviewed the main advances and new findings, and addressed key topics for future studies. These key findings and topics include mechanisms of vertical distributions of the vegetation belt, landscape ecosystem functioning and its driving factors, and changes in ecosystem structures and patterns in response to global change. We also propose six key areas of focus for future studies:1) an integrated network for monitoring the global mountain environment; 2) spatial and temporal patterns of mountain landscape ecology at multiple scales and the mechanism of its formation; 3) mechanisms of tree-line formation and tree-line dynamics studied using landscape ecology methods; 4) observations and simulations of ecosystem productivity and biodiversity in response to global change; 5) changes in the coupling of carbon and water cycles as a result of global change, 6) theory and modeling of mountain altitudinal belt structure. We believe this review could facilitate studies on landscape ecology in mountainous areas and predictions of the response of mountainous areas to global change.