text: The amount of material available for assimilating into organismal cells controls the rate of metabolism at the cellular to lake ecosystem level. In lakes, phosphorus and nitrogen are the most common limiting nutrients of primary production and ecosystem respiration. Foundational work on the positive relationship between phosphorus concentration and lake eutrophication resulted in legislation that limited the amount of phosphorus in laundry detergents, among other regulations. Although phosphorus is often used as a predictor of lake ecosystem productivity and excess phosphorus as an indicator of eutrophication, many studies show that metabolism is co-limited by phosphorus and nitrogen or nitrogen alone. The balance between phosphorus, nitrogen, and other nutrients, termed ecological stoichiometry, can dictate rates of organismal growth and whole-lake metabolism through cellular requirements of these essential nutrients mediated by life-history traits. For example, fast-growing cladocerans have a much lower nitrogen to phosphorus ratio (N:P) than copepods, mostly due to the high amount of phosphorus-rich RNA in their cells used for rapid growth. Cladocerans residing in lakes with high N:P ratios relative to cladoceran body stoichiometry will be limited in growth and metabolism, having effects on whole-lake metabolism. Furthermore, cascading effects from food web manipulations can cause changes in productivity from changes to nutrient stoichiometry. For example, piscivore addition can reduce predation pressure on fast-growing, low N:P cladocerans which increase in population rapidly, retain phosphorus in their cells, and can cause a lake to become phosphorus limited, consequently reducing whole-lake primary productivity.