Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 May 2006
We use the mass-to-light gradients in early-type galaxies to infer the global dark matter fraction, fd = Md/M*, for these systems. We discuss implications about the total star formation efficiency in dark-matter halos and show that the the trend of fd with mass produces virial mass-to-light ratios which are consistent semi-analitical models. Preliminary kurtosis analysis of the quasi-constant M/L galaxies in Romanowsky et al. seems at odd with Dekel et al. simulations.