Ecological assets refer to natural resource assets that can provide ecological products and services for human beings. Researching ecological assets and the supply of ecological products contributes to the sustainable development of natural–social–economic complex systems. This study conducts a literature search and statistical analysis based on the Web of Science, CNKI and Foreign Journal Resource Service System of Guizhou Normal University Library literature databases. We review 117 publications on the studies of ecological assets and ecological products supply. Based on summarizing the landmark results, the key scientific issues that need to be solved are proposed, and their implications for karst rocky desertification control are discussed. The results show that: (1) the number of publications each year from 2001 to 2020 shows a fluctuating growth trend. (2) The research concentrates on four dimensions: theoretical, evaluation, mechanism, and strategies research. Among them, evaluation research is the focus and hotspot of the research. (3) It is necessary to expand the research on the definition and distinction of ecological assets, services and products; the evaluation system of ecological products; the supply mechanism of ecological products from the perspective of resource endowment and the research of ecosystem coherence at different scales. (4) The karst rocky desertification control should focus on ecological assets’ management to promote the supply capacity of ecological products, pay attention to the quality assessment of ecological assets, explore the influencing mechanism of ecological assets and its optimization and promotion paths and strengthen the research on village ecosystems under karst rocky desertification control.

Villages are places where people gather and live. Due to economic and social development, the irrational behavior of the population has led to an imbalance in the village structure and has threatened the stability of the village ecosystem, resulting in the deterioration of the village environment. Therefore, it is of great necessity to study the structure and stability of village ecosystems and to optimize the structure of village ecosystems to better guide spatial planning and to restore village ecology. This study conducted a literature search and statistical analysis on the structure and stability of village ecosystems based on WOS and CNKI literature databases. We reviewed 105 relevant articles. The current research status and progress are clarified from structural characteristics, structural optimization, structure and function and stability study. To reveal the research achievements and deficiencies of research on the structure and stability of village ecosystems, the vital scientific issues that need to be addressed are summarized based on current research results. The study found that: (1) the quantity of studies on it were on the rise; (2) the study content mainly focused on structure and function (38%) and structural characteristics (21%); (3) the regions studied are mainly in Asia (73%), Europe (12%) and Africa (10%); and (4) research institutions are mainly colleges and universities. Therefore, future research should give attention to the following three aspects: strengthening the differentiation research on the spatio-temporal scale, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the influence of the Karst Desertification Control (KDC) village structure on stability; based on the mechanism of structure on function, appropriate village ecosystem structure should be established to improve ecosystem service function; based on the influence mechanism of structure on stability, the stability evaluation index system will be constructed so as to lay a solid foundation for the stability strategy of the KDC village ecosystem. By applying the strategy of structure optimization and stability improvement to the KDC village ecosystem, the service function of the Karst village ecosystem can be improved, which can provide scientific reference for the sustainable development of the KDC village ecosystem.