  We study the neutralino dark matter phenomenology in the context of effective
field theories derived from the weakly--coupled heterotic string. We consider
in particular direct detection and indirect detection with neutrino telescopes
rates. The two cases of moduli dominated and dilaton dominated SUSY breaking
lead to completely different phenomenologies. Even if in both cases relic
density constraints can be fulfilled, moduli domination generically leads to
detection rates which are much below the present and future experimental
sensitivities, whereas dilaton domination gives high detection rates accessible
to the next generation of experiments. This could make dark matter searches an
alternative way to constrain high energy fundamental parameters.
