The treeline ecotone refers to the transition from the timberline to treeless alpine vegetation. As either the upper-elevation or northernmost limit of erect trees, treeline will be sensitive to environmental change. An increasing number studies have focused on influence of climatic change on treeline dynamics. Treeline shift rate is also considered to be a fingerprint of influence of global change on terrestrial ecosystems. However, less is known about how disturbance, as an important non-climatic factor, mediates the response of treelines to climate change. Such studies can provide useful information to guide implementation of key ecological protection and rehabilitation measures in these comparatively cold biomes. Herein, we review research progress relating to impacts of different disturbances on ecological processes on the treeline ecotone. Based on the Web of Science and CNKI database, only a modest 10.8% of 1002 treeline-related publications from 1950 to 2018 focused on disturbance. Disturbances include natural and human-caused categories according to their causes. Natural disturbances mainly include volcanic eruptions, glacier fluctuations, wildfire, snow avalanche, biological activities, extreme low temperature, and strong wind. Human-caused disturbances mainly include deforestation, grazing, human-caused fire, mining, farming, medicinal plant collecting and tourism. In most cases, due to differences in intensity, frequency and time duration, different disturbances could have different effects on the ecological processes of the treeline ecotone. Under some circumstances, the impacts of natural and human-caused disturbances on treelines may not differ significantly. For example, natural wildfires and human-caused fires, as well as wildlife activities and livestock grazing, may contribute similar forcing in driving treeline dynamics. In disturbed areas, based on soil habitat regimes, treeline changes would follow two main stages, i.e., primary succession or secondary succession processes driven by multiple environmental factors and climate-driven stand changes. Observational data for the common disturbance influences (e.g. fire and grazing) were rare in recent studies, failing to distinguish relative effects of disturbances and climate change on ecological processes in the treeline ecotone.