Within a tree crown, local light conditions vary within a branch and among different branches. Although the role of light intensity in growth and survival of branches has been extensively studied, the effect of the spatial heterogeneity of light intensity on different levels of branching unit is poorly understood. We investigated the effects of light intensity on the growth and death of both primary branches (those branch off from the main stem) and secondary branches (those from the primary branches) in the whole crown. In primary branches, both light intensity and branch position (the length between branch base and the crown base) had significant effects on the current-year shoot production and the probability of branch death, but the relative importance of light intensity was greater than branch position. In addition, the effect of branch position was greater on the probability of branch death than on the current-year shoot production. In contrast, for secondary branches, the effect of light intensity was greater on the probability of secondary branch death than on the current-year shoot production. Our study suggest that the effects of light intensity on branch growth and death vary between different levels of branching units.