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As an important part of terrestrial ecosystem and the most sensitive to environmental changes, mountainous areas are rich in biodiversity and high value of ecosystem productivity. However, due to the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, most of the world's mountain ecosystems are being subjected to soil erosion and biodiversity is rapidly being lost, so the establishment of mountain ecological reserves is of great importance. In view of this, this paper used the Qinling-Daba Mountain, Qinling Mountain and Daba Mountain of China as the research area. On the basis of various simulated ecosystem service from 2000 to 2015, the root mean square deviation analysis and ordered weighted averaged model were used to determine the spatial changes of ecosystem service on environmental gradients, the tradeoff between ecosystem services and the selection of optimal protection areas. Our results proved that ① net primary production, soil conservation and habitat quality were increase significantly with increasing altitude and vegetation cover fraction gradient, but were weaken water yield and grain production. ② The change in the trade-off between multiple pairs of ecosystem services in the Daba Mountain was stronger than in the Qinling-Daba Mountain and the Qinling Mountain, especially the trade-off relationship related to water yield. ③ Considering various scenarios and conservation efficiency, it was found that scenario 7 was the best solution. The net primary production, soil conservation, habitat quality, grain production, and water yield protection efficiency were 1.261, 4.845, 1.059, 1.333, and 1.390 respectively. Priority conservation areas were mainly distributed in mid-altitude, high-vegetation, and high-mean annual precipitation areas. In this study, the combination of ecosystem services and priority conservation areas can play an important role in the management of the Qinling-Daba Mountain, and provides a meaningful reference for the selection of nature reserves. • Mountain ecosystem services have large spatial heterogeneity on different environmental gradients. • The priority protection area was selected by comparing the protection efficiency of different areas. • Explore the mechanism analysis and the trade-off relationship between mountain ecosystem services. • The combination of ecosystem services and protected areas can provide reference for mountain ecological planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]