Trade-offs and synergies -widely exist among ecosystem services, which is the core of ecology, geography and resources sciences. Deepening the understandings of the spatial characteristics, driving mechanism, and scale effects of trade-offs and synergies will no doubt shed light on human well-being and the “win-win” policy of environment and human. This paper identified the norms related to trade-offs and synergies of eco-services, and then clarified the theoretical foundation of this topic was clarified. Following that, the driving mechanism and scale effects of trade-offs and synergies of eco-services were investigated. Finally, we proposed future direction and questions for research work, including improving classification and assessment method on ecosystem services, expanding quantitative approaches on trade-offs and synergies of eco-system, and policy oriented ideology to sustainable development of environment and human.