Repeated changes in resource distribution mitigate inter-individual inequality of food acquisition in a captive group of large-billed crows

Animal group foraging produces inequality in food acquisition among individuals due to variation in social characteristics such as dominance rank. External environmental factors, particularly the spatial distribution of food, can modulate the influence of these social features on individual foraging success. However, the effects of repeated changes in food distribution on social foraging inequality remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigated how such repeated environmental changes affect inequality in food acquisition in a captive group of large-billed crows ( Corvus macrorhynchos ). By repeatedly reallocating food quantity across three fixed feeding sites, we quantified changes in inequality using the Gini coefficient. In the short term, food acquisition became more unequal immediately after each change but recovered in subsequent sessions. In contrast, inequality declined over repeated reallocations, accompanied by an increase in group-level foraging efficiency. At the individual level, food acquisition was associated with sex, whereas the expected effect of dominance rank was not detected. These results provide experimental evidence that repeated changes in the spatial distribution of food were associated with a reduction in inequality in food acquisition within foraging groups, highlighting the importance of temporal environmental dynamics in resource distribution for social foraging.