Ferulic acid(FA)was one of important auto-toxic chemicals leading to continuous cropping obstacle for many crops. A bacterium strain AWS4B was screened out and identified preliminarily as Staphylococcus sp.,named as AWS4B. The degradation characteristics was studied and the pathway of the degradation was discussed. The results showed that the degradation rate reached 99.97% in 72 h when the initial FA concentration in the inorganic salt urbane liquor was 100 mg/L. The degradation of FA followed first-order reaction kinetics model and the thermal degradation activation energy was 19.88 kJ/molThe rate constant(k0)was 3.26×10 -4and equation for strain AWS4B prediction model was proposed in this paper. Many compounds provide strain AWS4B with carbon and enery. The influence of different nutrient substrates added in the degradation experiments was also investigated. Degradation pathway was likely to be that FA was degraded into Vanillin, Vanillic acid and protocatechuic acid through non-oxidative decarboxylation, oxidation and demethylation.The protocatechuic acid was depredated through benzene ring cleavage and water and carbon dioxide were produced finally and FA was degraded by strain AWS4B.