Due to the technical characteristics and application scenarios of distributed networks, their nodes can easily be invaded and compromised. It will result in information being forged or tampered without difficulty. An effective scheme to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of information is judging how trustworthy nodes are in terms of transmission. In D-S evidence theory (DST), the uncertainty can be expressed to solve the trust fusion issue for multiple nodes. In this paper, for reviewing the DST-based trust evaluation and decision and providing their future research directions systematically. Meanwhile, the DST is briefly reviewed, and two improvements in DST are categorically described. The role and mechanism in DST-based trust models are compared and analyzed. The valuable research directions in the near future are represented. Our contributions could solve the trust problem in resource constrained sensor nodes and improve the decision reliability of network.INDEX TERMS D-S evidence theory, distributed network, trust model.