Acquiring accurate, spatially explicit data is crucial for ecologists, particularly for long-term landscape and spatial ecological research. Remote sensing techniques have been widely used for collecting data on spatial and temporal ecological phenomena over the last decades. However, owing to the limitations of spatial and temporal resolution of satellite image data, they are sometimes hard to incorporate into regional or local temporal ecological studies. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) remote sensing technology provides a new method for ecological field data acquisition. With its flexibility, efficiency, and convenience, UAV remote sensing technology overcomes the limitations of traditional satellite-based remote sensing in terms of resolution, revisit period, and cloud cover, which has been increasingly focused in studies on landscape ecology. The present study introduced UAV classification and sensor types, in addition to its applications in species, population, community, and ecosystem research. In addition, it pointed out the challenges involved in these applications. We look forward to the promising research area of UAV-based landscape ecology.