Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to study retrospectively the crown development of large canopy trees of French Guiana. We choose several species expressing various ecological behaviors, architectural developments and phenologies which had at least one morphological or anatomical marker usable in retrospective analysis. We described well sun exposed branches that were representative of individuals' height-growth and reproduction. Simultaneously, we conducted a monthly phenological survey in order to compare our hypotheses from the retrospective analysis to the phenological data. The retrospective analysis allowed us to reconstruct the last 10 to 15 developmental cycles within the branches in mean, sometimes up to 40 cycles in some species. Data give information on the species' intrinsic phenological organization as on growth modalities and reproduction. We could access to the meristems history within the branches and in some case, we could approach meristems interactions on a trophic level. Finally, we could compare species with various phenological strategies within the same relative temporal frame given that is given by the retrospective analysis. The retrospective analysis appears to be a reliable complementary tool that gives access to new and original results in tropical tree study.