From the 1980s to the present, the natural and artificial ecosystems of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have undergone extensive and profound changes. As an important ecological barrier area in China, it is essential to systematically and quantitatively analyze the evolution of the ecosystem patterns and its driving factors. In this study, 8-periods datasets from 1980 to 2018 of the land use and cover change based on the satellite remote sensing imagery interpretation were used to reclassify 9 major ecosystem types on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, including forest, shrub, grassland, agricultural land, urban, waters and wetland, glacier, bare land, and desert. According to their main components, they were divided into the natural ecosystems dominated by vegetation (forest, shrub, and grassland), and the natural ecosystems dominated by inorganic environment (waters and wetland, glacier, bare land, and desert), and there was another type of artificial ecosystems (agricultural land, and urban). The statistical results showed that from 1980 to 2018, the area of natural ecosystems dominated by vegetation accounted for about 61.9% of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Among the natural vegetation, the grassland has fluctuated largely with the changing rate exceeding 30%/10a. The shrub expanded significantly and raised up approximately 7%/10a. The area of glacier near the Himalayas Mountains have been declining rapidly, with a shrinking rate of approximately 25%/10a. On the eastern edge of the Plateau, the urban has expanded to the west significantly, as the proportion of urban areas has increased by about 40%. We calculated the changing rate of the temperature and precipitation to quantify the spatio-temporal characteristics of the external climatic environment that drove the evolution of the ecosystems. Combined with the other comprehensive driving factors including geographical factors, human activity intensity index, soil erosion degree, and the biological abundance, we established a multi-level structural equation model. The results indicated that the changes of the natural ecosystems dominated by vegetation was significantly negatively correlated with the changing rate of temperature and precipitation, while the changes of natural ecosystems dominated by inorganic environment was significantly positively correlated with the changing rate of the climatic factors. The coupling relationship between the artificial ecosystem and external environmental factors was weak. The results of the negative feedbacks suggested a conservative coupling relationship between the vegetational natural ecosystems, forest, shrub, and grassland, and the external environmental changes, which had higher resilience than the non-vegetation ecosystems, like glacier, waters and wetland, bare land and desert. Therefore, protecting the natural vegetation in the area means to maintain the overall ecological barrier function of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.